System Reboot
by Iwasbored
Summary: (A simple rewrite of the story) Ichika Orimura constantly lived under the shadows of the Brunhilde and the genius inventor. He never felt sore about it, but simply admired the two towering above him like the rest of the world did. While the rest of the world observed the successes of these two prodigies, a select few held a special interest in what he could become.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I do not own I.S. and no copyright infringement is intended.

"Speaking"

I found myself waking up with my arms and legs tied up with some rope. Where was I? The last thing I could recall was that I had entered a taxi in order to get into an airport. Other than that, the only other things I could gather were from my senses. All I could hear was a slow dripping sound in the distance mixed in with the dull grinding sounds of heavy machinery. The room was too dark to make out all of the details of the room with the exception that there seemed to be some lumps and bars along the walls. The air was frigid.

Even as I scanned the room, it was clear that there weren't too many things lying around to help my situation too much. I had clearly been kidnapped by someone or a group. The question was why they had kidnapped me of all people. Just knowing what my captors wanted would tell me how to deal with the situation.

As sad as it seemed, I was clearly not the real target unless they were some slave traders that had posed as a taxi service. There was really only one obvious reason why they would kidnap me. They were trying to get Chifuyu-nee's attention. My sister was going to have an important match in the Mondo Grosso, and the organizers had given me a front row seat for it. Chifuyu-nee was supposed to be defending her title as the Brunhilde, and I ended getting kidnapped. My kidnappers were probably trying to use me to force Chifuyu-nee to forfeit the match, and knowing my sister, she would if it meant saving her only remaining family.

Regardless of how dire my situation was, I couldn't sit around and have Chifuyu-nee lose simply because I became a burden for her. I didn't even know how long I had been knocked out, so I don't even know if any struggling I did would do any good. The only things that told me that it wasn't too late were the facts that I didn't feel pain in my stomach and that I felt as though I could move about a lot if I wasn't bound by the ropes..

First thing I had to do was to remove the rope binding my arms. Fortunately for me, the rope seemed to be using a type of knot that could be escaped if I popped my shoulder. It still sucked because it was going to hurt, but it did tell me that my captors still only saw me as a kid. The only question was when I should try to remove my restraints. I had no way of knowing where I was and how to escape. I didn't even know if people would be waiting right outside the exit of this building. In fact, I didn't even know where the exit was since it was so dark. It probably was a better idea to bide my time until someone comes to check up on me rather than trying to break free right at this moment. Even if I wasn't worth that much, I was still the hostage.

The only question was when someone going to come into this room. Someone had to come to make sure that I wasn't going to starve or to make sure that I hadn't escaped.

I waited for what I felt like was an hour before the room lit up in front of me. The doorway had two shadows stretch towards me. The shadows were connected to one large man and a child that I could only guess was about the same age as me given by the heights. Somehow the image of the other kid made me let out a small sigh. It sounds despicable, but I was glad I wasn't the only being kidnapped. I wasn't glad that someone else got involved, but it made me hopeful that I wasn't being used as a ransom. Plus, more kidnappings would point to the possibility that I was kidnapped slave traders. This would mean that wherever we were stuck at wouldn't have nearly as much security as a base designed to hold off an Infinite Stratos.

The man just tossed the child next to me and proceeded to leave the room hastily. My only guess as to why he didn't come closer to check to make sure that my ropes were still binding my arms and legs was that he knew he was only dealing with a ten year old. I couldn't blame him for not checking though since most kids my age would probably be frantically trying to figure out a way to escape without popping a shoulder.

In any case, I needed to check to make sure my new roommate was okay and try to figure out if he or she knew where we were. There was also the fact that I couldn't exactly leave him or her behind.

"Hey are you okay?" I asked quietly.

My fellow victim responded in a fairly high pitch and with a very confused jumble of words. Normally I would be happy to hear a response, but what she said was very troubling. She was very clearly not speaking in Japanese or English and I had no way of communicating with her. In fact I didn't have too much of an idea of what language she was speaking since I wasn't exposed to much else besides the two that I knew. I hardly even knew how to speak English.

The only useful information that I would be getting from her was probably going to be from her name. Anything else wasn't going to be verbally given. Unfortunately for me, she was not taking the situation quite as well as I was and she was in a position that didn't let me see her face since my vision was obscured by her blond hair.

Popping my shoulder out was going to suck, but I never really had too many options to begin with. I probably wasn't going to find any better time to try to escape since our captors didn't seem like they were going to come in for quite a while. I had my doubts that they were even properly guarding the door at this point.

After managing to pop my shoulder and cringing in pain for a good minute, I started to work on removing the ropes holding my holds together. While I was busy trying to escape, I couldn't help but notice that the girl was quietly sobbing. I couldn't blame her though. If it wasn't for the fact that Chifuyu-nee had taught me how to break out of some situation, I'd probably be doing the same thing.

After managing to remove the ropes restraining me, I proceeded to untie the girl while gently talking.

"My name is Ichika Orimura," I repeated several times since I had no other way to explain to her that I was introducing myself. It might have come off as a tad bit condescending, but I couldn't think of any other way other than to point at myself and speak slowly like in the shows with the over exaggerated attempts to communicate to foreigners.

It took a while for the girl to calm down enough to tell me that her name was Charlotte. The name and the foreign language made indicated that Charlotte was probably French. Using that information, I had to guess that we were somewhere in Russia since our location had to be somewhere between the areas where we had been kidnapped. The building was definitely cold enough for it to be in Russia in the middle of winter.

Although I had managed to calm Charlotte down quite a bit, I noticed that she was still shaking. It wasn't surprising given how cold the room was.

After I had managed to remove the rope binding the girl, I took off the jacket of my school uniform and handed it to her since she seemed to need it more than I did. Strangely enough, she tried to shove my jacket back towards me. She was probably concerned about my health as well, which I found to be very sweet.

"I'll be fine, Charlotte," I said while covering her with my jacket. She gave me a curious look as I thumped my chest to hopefully convey the fact that I was going to be okay without the jacket. Though Charlotte gave me a worried look, she just gave a reluctant sigh over my stubbornness. Despite her pouting, I noticed a slight tinge on her face. Whether it was from the cold or for some other reason was still something beyond me.

As sweet as the moment was, we still had the problem of escaping. Even if I had an idea of where we were, we still had no means of transportation or communication. I could barely communicate with Charlotte, which is kind of detriment since we definitely needed to work together in order to escape from here.

Sitting here and worrying wouldn't get us anywhere though. I stood up and offered my hand to Charlotte to motion that we should be get going. She firmly grasped my hand, and I could feel how soft her hand was. It was very gentle and helped give me a sense of security for some reason. I could only hope that she got a similar feeling from me when she was hoisting herself up from the ground.

We slowly ventured towards the door where Charlotte had been escorted through and tried nudging the door slightly open. I had initially thought that the door would have been locked since we were hostages, but for some reason it wasn't. Charlotte had a surprised look on her face as well since there seemed to be very little security. I decided to not think too deeply into it since it just meant that we could escape more easily.

I took a peek through the opening we made and found that there were no guards around. Instead, I just saw a red sunset hovering over some trees that lined up against a snowy field to the right. To the left there were some other buildings that looked like warehouses and a couple of tents. There even seemed to be a communication tower of sorts.

Normally, no one would even consider heading towards the buildings given the fact that that was the most likely place where our kidnappers would stay. Charlotte had an expected reaction by trying to tugging on me right side. I, on the other hand, wanted to head towards the buildings. Though it was clearly more risky for us to do so, heading to the right probably spelled doom for us. We had no food, no water, no idea as to where we were, and no shelter to keep us warm in the winter. In open honesty, the hostile environment and lack of information were probably the reasons as to why our kidnappers probably didn't even bother to set up security. Our best hope was to try to contact Chifuyu-nee or someone affiliated with an I.S. to come save us.

There was also the chance that other children might be stuck here. I couldn't stomach the idea of leaving behind others just to save my own skin. Whether or not it was a bad habit of mine, it made me who I am. I at least could say that my stubbornness in those types of situations helped two of my best friends out of some serious situations. However, I can't exactly say that I looked forward to Chifuyu-nee's scolding afterwards.

As I tried to walk towards the buildings, Charlotte's gentle tugging became a firm pull. Looking back to her, I began to notice some of the facial features that were too hard to distinguish in the dark. Her irises were a deep shade of purple that somehow scared me and called to me at the same time. Charlotte had a very healthy and even skin tone. She was very cute as well, but she was giving me a frown that, quite honestly, frightened me a bit. If only I could see her smiling, but that seemed impossible given the situation. She was simply frightened and I guess somewhat angry over the fact that I was jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire.

"We need to get help," I slowly said. To this, Charlotte gave a puzzled look with a small frown on her face. She was obviously confused, and I wouldn't blame her for it. This was the best time we could escape without being caught. While I will admit that there was a decent chance of us escaping and finding help, I didn't want to risk a slow painful death. At least with my plan, we would just be locked up again. It would suck, but we wouldn't be dead.

It took me a while to get my point across that we needed to go to the buildings to stay alive. I also ended up having to do a lot of charades to motion the fact that we weren't properly equipped to deal with the environment. Even as I did this, I could never really tell if she understood what I meant since we had no form of communication to truly indicate that being the case. The only thing that pointed in that general direction was the fact that she let out a sigh and stopped tugging on me.

After giving another quick scan of the area, we quickly and quietly proceeded to a warehouse that was close by. I was hoping that there was something we could use in order to escape. Even though I wanted to use what looked to be a communication tower in order to contact someone with an I.S. since I doubted that many in this country could understand Japanese, escaping would still be a better option if there we could get supplies to last us.

What we found was something beyond what we could imagine would be here. We didn't end up finding any food, water or clothing. Instead, we found boxes full of weapons. The funny thing was that the boxes of weapons weren't what really got our attention. Instead, our attention was focused on the I.S. sitting in the back.

While the machine did bring us some hope of getting out, it also spelled out a lot of issues. One being who we were dealing with since an I.S. wasn't exactly something people could get their hands on. The fact that this was in here could only mean that we were in some deep shit.

"Can you try to pilot it?" I asked Charlotte nervously while pointing at the machine.

Charlotte just shook her head and made a heart shape with her hands that she quickly changed into an x shape. Unless she meant that her love died in an I.S. before, I could safely assume that she meant that something the machine needed wasn't there. It figures since it would be ridiculous for any organization to leave an unmanned suit just lying around for anyone to use.

We proceeded to check the others warehouses as we made our way to what I was hoping was the communications building in hopes of finding the supplies we wanted. Unfortunately for us, we were disappointed and only found more weapons. The sheer amount of weapons was startling. Who exactly were these people to have so many weapons and several I.S. suits lying about? The only thing I could be glad about was that we never found other hostages.

After our fruitless explorations, we found ourselves looking for some vent to enter the building with the tower. We weren't going to be as stupid as to just walk right through front entrance. It was already a miracle that we hadn't been caught yet or found anyone in those warehouses. We didn't want to run out of luck now that we had to do this part. As long as we weren't caught in the communications room, we could call for help with a fairly good chance of getting away safely.

It didn't take us long to find a way in once we climbed onto the roof. It was also quite fortunate for me because it was about this point that I could feel the chill really get to move. I was actually quite surprised that I lasted so long at this temperature. I was also quite surprised that Charlotte was able to keep up as well since the jacket really didn't give her too much protection from the cold either.

As we crawled through the steely ventilation, the outgoing air warmed us a little bit. We also heard several footsteps as our kidnappers were walking right under us. Every time we heard the heavy footsteps and the accompanying gruff noises of the kidnappers' conversation, both Charlotte and I would freeze in fear of being found. Neither of us would make a sound or move until we felt sure that our captors moved away from under us. If it wasn't for the fact that our very lives and futures depended on us not screwing up, this would have made a very interesting videogame.

After what seemed like an eternity in that cramped vent, we finally found an exit that led to a vacant room. The both of us were hurrying because we both realized that we were spending too much time exploring and hiding. It wouldn't be too much longer before the group would discover that we had escaped.

Looking around the room, I had to guess that we were in some storage room given the amount of cleaning solutions and spare parts were lying around. I ended up picking some metal pipes propped next to the wall as a weapon. It would have been very unlikely for our final destination to have been unguarded. I motioned to Charlotte to try to grab something off the ground or shelves to use in case we ran into trouble.

After a few minutes of watching her browse through some items and contemplate over who knows what, she ended up choosing the cleaning solution and a couple of blankets. We didn't have too much to choose from, but I was still a tad bit confused as to why she decided to bring the blankets. I would have figured that she would have gone for a pipe as well, but she was clearly seeing something that I couldn't.

We pushed the door open ever so slightly to get a view of what was outside the room and just found a small empty kitchen. The next few moments were extremely gratifying as we quickly indulged ourselves on whatever we could grab and eat at the moment. While the food was still somewhat unsatisfying since we couldn't cook anything, it was still something we could eat. I even saw Charlotte bundling some food into the blankets.

"Clever girl," I said with a small laugh to myself. I hadn't even thought of a situation such as this. I was far too concerned about just getting to the communications room and not too much about what we might have to do afterwards should we not be able to send out a signal for help.

After stocking up and tying the blanket full of food to a second pipe in the storage room, we slowly crept around trying to find something that at least looked like a room to send out a distress signal. The building was too large so it was only a matter of time before we could find the room we needed. The real time consuming part was trying to explore without coming across anyone working in the building or getting into the view of the few security cameras. Because there were so many armed men and very little hiding spots, we ended up backtracking for quite a bit to find another route or some closet to hide in.

After avoiding about a dozen patrol groups, we eventually found ourselves right outside a door with a window. Through the window, I could see one man operating several monitors showing several of the hallways that we had tried to go through before. There was one monitor that really mattered though. The man's attention was focused on one single monitor with my sister's angry face plastered over it. Judging by the man's hand gestures and how my sister was able to respond, it was clear that this was our opportunity to call for help.

I opened the door without so much as making a noise, which had become second nature to me after all the practice we received from sneaking around so much. I didn't even wait for Charlotte as I made a mad dash to inflict a solid strike to the man's head with the pipe. I felt a very dull pain grow in my hands and heard a very sickening thud open contact.

The man wasn't moving and my sister was giving a very stunned look over what had just happened. Looking back, I saw Charlotte quickly shutting the door behind us and motioning for the pipe in my hands. Whether she was motioning out of fear of what just happened or out of need was something I may never know. In any case, I slid the pipe towards her so that she could lock the door.

"Ichika, are you alright!" my sister said worriedly with little concern for the man who I might have just killed.

"I'm a bit queasy, but I think I'll be okay. I'd much rather be watching your match though," I tried to say calmly. The key word was tried though as I ended up just sounding exhausted and tired from the whole experience.

She just gave a light chuckle though. I guess she was just relieved over the fact that I was alright and relatively safe. Chifuyu-nee must have been really worried over whether or not I was alive to begin with.

"Ichika, can you keep this transmission going for another five minutes? I'll come pick you up as soon as we can pinpoint where you are," she said sternly with a fair amount of bloodlust dripping in her voice.

"What about your championship title match?" I asked hesitantly knowing that she might become upset over me trying to convince her to send someone else to come get me.

Fortunately for me, she didn't seem to be in a mood to get angry over this. My sister was probably just taking my exhaustion and possible mental state into account so as not to put too much pressure on me. All she stated was that I was far more important than some stupid title.

"Hey Chifuyu-nee, can you do me a favor. Can you send someone else here to pick us up? I don't want you to forfeit the match," I pleaded.

"Ichika…" my sister said before I interjected.

"I know you want to get me to safety as soon as possible, but I don't want to just become a burden for you. These guys were clearly trying to get your attention by kidnapping me, and I can only think that they wanted you to forfeit the match."

My sister tried to say something, but I continued with my childish stubbornness. I knew that she probably wasn't going to listen to me, but I wanted her to compete and retain her title as the strongest. Chifuyu-nee was the greatest I.S. pilot in the world and enjoyed piloting. Though it might have just been me imposing on her what I imagined to be the ideal form of my sister, I knew that Chifuyu-nee had been looking forward to this match. I knew that she thoroughly enjoyed fighting the tough opponents she faced in the Mondo Grosso.

I kept talking and ranting about Chifuyu-nee shouldn't have to suffer in order to take care of me. I kept talking and talking until I felt my throat go sore, and even then I kept trying to convince my sister to take part in the match. The only time I stopped talking was when I started to feel my consciousness waver ever so slightly.

"Okay Ichika. You win. I'll take part in the match," Chifuyu-nee stated with a wry smile on her face.

I gave an exhausted laugh before asking Chifuyu-nee, "I know you can speak French Chifuyu-nee. Can you tell Charlotte to hide in the closet behind me until help arrives? We probably don't have too much time before the security realizes that we… managed to… escape…"

* * *

I ended up waking up on a cold metal table with my body bound by metal restraints this time.

"Oh. Good morning sleepy head. You shouldn't have woken up yet. Your about to go through a very special operation, and my boss isn't going to be too happy that you're about to feel unimaginable pain. Well I guess it doesn't matter to me too much since your distress call attracted some rather bloodthirsty Germans here," a surgeon said rather vehemently.

Though the fact that the woman was speaking Japanese in an area far from where I was born, I was definitely more concerned about this operation she was speaking about. It didn't take a genius to figure out that I was screwed if I couldn't find a way to distract her. When I tried to speak, I realized that my mouth was actually numbed and gagged. The only sounds coming from my mouth were a couple of indistinct and muffled words.

"Ohhhh. The little boy can't say anything. I guess that's a blessing on my ears," she said with a sadistic look in her eyes as she drew near to my face.

Whether it was because I started to struggle or showed fear in my eyes, she resumed her taunting.

"Are you afraid that I'm mad? Don't be. Though you have put me in a bit of a tight spot, you have done very well in test. However, I do have to say that I am a little bit disappointed in your choice of a hiding spot for that girl. Typical, but then again you are still only a child. Despite this, my master will surely be pleased with your potential. I can only hope for a promotion after all of this. There is only one remaining question," she calmly monologued only to end it with an insidious look on her face.

"Will you survive this operation?" she cackled while injecting something into my neck.

Author's Notes

#1: For the most part these notes will just be here to clarify some things that may not have been so obvious while reading. Please favorite and follow if you liked this story. Also send reviews of things you liked or disliked so that I can try to improve the work. Send questions and I will probably respond to some of them in the next chapter.

#2: I will be using the Japanese honorifics for certain characters because it is simply how they address certain family members and because I can think of some ways to mess with them or make puns.


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: I do not own I.S. and no copyright infringement is intended.

"Speaking"

Also look at the author notes concerning the shifting perspectives.

"Look here Ichika! This is what your heart looks like. A real let down right? I always had imagined it to be more… heartish. In any case I'm gonna pull it out now and give you a new ticker."

The master is going to be so pleased with how Ichika is going to turn out. She was just so angry about how the last two had turned out, but I guess that was my fault. Back then I was just so naïve in thinking that I might actually break my toys because they might have been too 'fragile' to continue on with the game. Because of my useless fears, I was robbed of making a perfect character. Not once, but twice.

"Oh this is so much fun! These operations really remind me of when I used to be a little girl right about your age. It was always so much fun trying to accessorize my toys. Now I know you might not get the simplicity of just dressing up one of your dolls with your generations focus on videogames, but even you should be able to appreciate the fun in painting your imagination onto the real world," I giggled with excitement over anticipation of what I was molding little Ichika into.

I could even feel the excitement vibrate off of the young boy. I could just see it every single time I dug this scalpel into one of his muscles. He just gave the smallest quiver and a hearty muffled sound. It was just so cute to see how the anticipation filled his eyes every time he saw me raise an organ from his chest and dangled it in front of his eyes. Ichika was quite probably my favorite toy as of yet. He was the only to give me such a satisfying reaction without so much as dying on me. If I could only hear what he was saying, but I couldn't have him dying on me by accident now could I.

What was more interesting was that Ichika had even given me an interesting challenge by calling in some more playmates. Now I was getting to have my fun with a time limit. Was I going to finish my operation, or would those hounds sniff me out first? Not that it mattered since they had to let me finish if they didn't want the boy to die. But the sounds of explosions outside was quite exhilarating as the shaking grew more intense and the sounds drew ever closer.

"Oh Ichika, you are going to the crown jewel on my resume. You know, you are very lucky. Just think about this operation like a character customization in a videogame. Have you ever had the sense of accomplishment when you max out the character perfectly? To have all of the stats maxed. You must know. I'm sure everyone has that feeling. People always wish to be perfect, but most can only get to do that in a videogame because they can't do it to themselves. You're going to see the world from a point of view that everyone wishes to see with. I'm going to make it so that you can be perfect. Oh will you look at that. I only have to modify your brain now."

Oh how cute, the little boy wet himself. Actually, how did he do that? I was sure that I replaced his bladder with a fresh one. Whatever, I only have to do one more thing before I can start my fun with the French girl. Too bad we couldn't delay the operation a day later. I would have loved to see little Ichika and his playmate tear each other apart with their upgrades, but alas, not everything is going to go my way.

"Now Ichika, I'm going to plug this very large needle through your skull and into your brain. And I promise you, it's going to be completely painless… for me. For you, I have no idea since you won't be able to remember anything for the past 24 hours. Oh don't give me that scared look. You might not remember me, but I'll always remember how you were such a good patient," I cooed and petted his head before jabbing the needle through the top of his skull and into his brain.

As soon as I had finished my business with Ichika, my eyes shifted to the girl cowering in the corner. Oh how she was shaking and scrambling in fear. I honestly wondered what I must look like to her. Obviously I looked like the villain here, but what I was wondering was about my physical appearance. If it weren't for the fact that I was wearing a surgeon's outfit, I could possibly describe myself as wearing a scarlet dress. It was completely expected since I was just ripping out and replacing everything in Ichika's body.

"Hey there Charlotte, do you want to play doctor with me? I'll be the doctor and you can be the patient," I said with a sickly sweet tone and a maniacal smile as I approached the young girl.

I had forgotten that the girl probably didn't understand any Japanese at all. Judging from how she was completely freaking out and crawling to get away from me. If it weren't for the fact that I was such an understanding person, I would have been so hurt by her rejection.

"Don't be like that. Someone with a lot of money wanted me to get rid of you, but I don't like getting rid of my little playthings. I promise that we'll have fun. How about we play a different game instead? How about I make you part robot? All your little friends will think that you're so cool when you can fly around," I sweetly said in French.

Unfortunately for me, my time for fun was up as the wall behind me was quickly torn apart by what looked like a second generation I.S. suit. They must have been really serious for them to have sent in the big guns for this rescue mission. I also had to wonder how much of the Alaska Treaty was blatantly ignored just to save the two kids.

"What exactly did you offer to the Germans to get them so riled up little Chi-chan?" I murmured amusedly.

* * *

"Oh it's so nice to see you Chi-chan! You're all grown up now! How have you been? Come give your aunty a big hug like the old days!" I exclaimed when one of my old dolls came walking through the door.

What I received instead of a hug was the barrel of a magnum pointed straight at my forehead.

"Do not try to fuck with me right now! How did you come back and how dare you operate on Ichika!"

"Oh is mama bear angry that her little cub is going to grow up? I don't see the problem. He isn't even going to remember the whole experience. I mean you didn't. In fact, I should be the one pissed off since all the ones that I love never seem to be able to remember me even after I put my heart and soul in helping them," I pouted over how ungrateful Chi-chan was over me giving her family such fantastic upgrades.

Though I was just teasing her, something about what she said was somewhat concerning. She seemed to have the misinterpretation that I was gone for some reason. Chi-chan probably just thought that the boss had executed me for not keeping a better eye on my toys. In all honesty, I probably wouldn't put it pass the boss to get rid of me for those blunders.

"You call that growing up?! That's not growing up! You're just adding bits and parts to him as though he were some machine! He is a human being! You can't just go and modify him as you please! And what's more unforgivable is that you did that to my little brother of all people! He's the only family I have!"

"Hey I'm your family too you know. I was just looking out for little Ichika," I whistled out.

"You are not related to either of us! We share no blood and no joyous memories with you! The only things we share with you are horrific experiences of being disassembled!" Chi-chan lashed out at me.

"Now now... I'm sure you're just over exaggerating. Besides, I've had enough of your and Ichika's blood all over me to be your blood relative," I said with a wide and curved grin on my face.

"Give me a good fucking reason why I shouldn't blow a god damn hole in your skull this time," Chi-chan said more calmly, but quite vehemently.

"Because you're a good girl, Chi-chan. Good girls like you can't do the same things like me. You can't just give in to your anger because you know it'll make you more like me. I also know that you don't like letting down Ichika's expectations. You can't break the role of the perfect big sister that can do no wrong; the sister that can't lose to anyone. Isn't that why you didn't come flying here as soon as you could? Isn't that why you couldn't 'save' poor little Ichika from the mean old aunty? Are you going to let Ichika down again by killing the big mean bully?" I jeered without fear of the repercussions.

Chi-chan may be the Brunhilde, but she was still human. She still had some weaknesses, and I knew where to press her buttons after knowing her for so long. I was the one to make her into what she was. Even if I ended up just getting her to pull the trigger instead of walking away, it would be my win. I honestly couldn't give two shits about whether I lived or died.

I was more interested in changing people into what I saw as beautiful, and there was nothing more beautiful than to see an elegant goddess topple down from her pedestal. Besides, she would be doing me a big favor by killing me since the boss was probably going to be really pissed at me for losing so many second generation suits.

I could see some questionable thoughts flicker back in forth in her mind through her eyes as she began a mental struggle over what she should do. It was quite the sight to behold. It was quite a rarity to ever see Chi-chan become so aggravated over anything. She was usually brimming with confidence with every stride she took. The sight was quite refreshing and beautiful, but still felt somewhat lacking. Though she was clearly forcing herself to evaluate the pro and cons of each decision, the conflict was lacking the utter despair and sense of hopelessness I wanted to see in the woman.

The Brunhilde wasn't like Taba-chan and little Ichika in that she didn't hold the same naïve nature that everything was going to be okay with no risk. I knew that she wasn't above sacrificing others for her goals. I knew she could pull the trigger given a little bit of time and that made it no fun to watch. I wanted to see the moment when the perfect being fall from the highest point as they have to make the ultimate sacrifice. I wanted to see the type of person that couldn't bring themselves to kill another without completely defying everything they were. The fact that she was willing to get rid of others made her too imperfect and made the fall too short to truly enjoy.

"You know what? You're right in that I want to be able to fit Ichika's image of me. I like knowing that Ichika thinks so highly of me. But you're also right in that trying to fit that ideal also put Ichika in your hands. I'm not the embodiment of perfection. So I think Ichika will be fine if 'I' pull the trigger," she said slowly as I saw her slowly pull the trigger.

"How anticlimactic, this why you were always so bor-"

* * *

"So how is my little brother doing?" I asked the head of the medical team with the little girl named Charlotte hanging closely to my skirt.

"Chifuyu-nee? What happened? Why am I in a hospital bed?" Ichika managed to croak.

It seemed that he was barely conscious. I wasn't too surprised. He did just have all or his bones, muscles, nerves and organs replaced. Fortunately, it seemed that he wouldn't remember what had just happened to him, or at least I hoped that he didn't. The operation was supposed to have a small side effect of memory loss since his brain was essentially undergoing drastic changes. I don't know whether or not to be thankful that he was forced to have his brain modified. On one hand, he could just put everything behind him, but on the other, he shouldn't have been subjected to such a cruel operation to begin with.

I saw Charlotte quickly rush towards my bedridden brother and asking him in French, "Ichika, how are you doing?" Though it seemed sweet how Ichika's new friend was so concerned about him, I couldn't feel any joy from the sight. It was very likely that Charlotte was just a complete stranger to Ichika talking in some foreign language after the operation, and judging by how quickly she ran to his side, she wasn't going to be too happy about being forgotten.

"He's going to make a complete recovery somehow. I'm not exactly sure how he survived with all things considered. I'll leave you three alone for now. Just remember that he needs to rest and that you need to go talk to the general afterwards," the head doctor said quietly before dismissing himself.

"Chifuyu-nee… What's going on? Why does she look like she's going to cry?" my brother asked with a baffled look plastered on his face. Despite his confusion, he started to pat the girl's head to comfort her.

"Look Ichika. You got into an accident when you were trying to save her. You've been knocked out for quite awhile. She just wanted to make sure that you were okay before she had to go home," I lied while wearing a stoic expression.

"Did I miss your match?" he asked while trying to get up. Ichika only ended up falling down as a result. He was still healing and getting used to his new body so there was no way he was going to be able to move freely for a bit.

"Yeah, it wasn't much of a match though. It only took me about three seconds to end it so you really didn't miss much," I said bitterly as I recalled how I ended up participating in the match with such a weak opponent instead of taking care of Ichika. I really shouldn't have said weak though. The pilot was clearly strong, but I had wanted to rush over here so quickly that I couldn't see her as anything but a nuisance.

"I see," Ichika said while dropping down his shoulders in disappointment.

"Ichika, I am going to be very busy for the next few years," I said hesitantly since I was still unsure as to how to break the news to Ichika, especially since he was already so down.

"I don't like where this is going," Ichika said with a nervous gulp.

"I'm going to have to help train some prospective I.S. pilots for the German military for helping you out. As a result, I am putting Tabane in charge of looking after you while I'm gone."

"Okay," he sighed out in relief.

"Okay?" I responded with a slight bit of confusion.

"It's not like you're going to disappear right? I mean we swore to each other that we would always be a family and look out for each other," my brother said with a noticeable increase in the heart monitor's beeping. He must have thought that he might have misinterpreted what I meant.

"We made a pinky promise that I intend to keep," I said with a smile on my face as I extended my arm towards my bedridden brother.

"Or you'll eat a cluster bomb," he said jokingly while hooking his pinky to my outstretched one before falling to sleep.

"Come on Charlotte. My little brother needs his rest, and I need to tell you something really important before I send you home."

* * *

"So this is the Brunhilde's brother," I asked the attending doctor.

"Are you interested in the boy Laura?" she asked with a small mischievous grin on her lips.

"I am curious as to why my future instructor cares so much about him. In my opinion, he seems quite weak. Why would such a strong woman need someone so frail?" I asked.

The doctor's shoulder's quickly drooped and she just gave sigh to response. I didn't understand as to why she was so disappointed. Did I ask something unnecessary or foolish? Was I becoming unfit as a soldier by asking such questions?

"I'm sorry if I have displeased you doctor. I won't ask further about such matters," I apologized while bowing.

"It's not that Laura. I was just hoping that you were interested in him for a different reason."

"What other reason would I be curious? The only thing I can fathom is his combat capabilities since he isn't exactly a normal person anymore," I responded with curiosity as to what this woman was thinking.

"Still thinking like a soldier I see," she sighed with a somewhat saddened look.

"Is there any other way for me to think? I was bred for that specific purpose," I stated without so much as batting my one eye.

"There are other ways to live Laura. You don't have to spend your entire life as a soldier."

"But I was born for that sole purpose. How can I not live my life as a soldier? Wouldn't not fulfilling my purpose mean I'm a failure?"

"Life is more than just fighting Laura. I mean take a look at me. I am in the military, but instead of fighting, my job is to help people to get better again. The world also has farmers that grow food, athletes that play in sports, teachers that teach, and so many more," the doctor said slowly with a sad face.

"But they all serve a specific purpose in life. I was born with a specific purpose. I was born to be the strongest," I said with a slight tone of regret over how my performance so far had been so lackluster.

"I guess. Now I suggest that you go look for Ms. Orimura. I'm sure she'll want to see who she'll have to be teaching for the next three years."

Author's Notes

#1: For the most part these notes will just be here to clarify some things that may not have been so obvious while reading. Please favorite and follow if you liked this story. Also send reviews of things you liked or disliked so that I can try to improve the work. Send questions and I will probably respond to some of them in the next chapter.

#2: This is to answer some of Bunny153539's questions that weren't covered in this chapter yet and won't spoil some later chapters. The childhood friends are still Houki and Rin. I can't see her as being more of a mama bear past this chapter too much because that's just not her character. Sure I can make some scenarios that would bring out more of her emotions, but even that will be somewhat limited. I'm not really planning to have Ichika meet anymore of the main cast before the canon part of the story. As for the canon age, I actually didn't know that one. I just picked ten because I felt the number worked out a bit better for the story.

#3: I tried to switch perspectives to give a better feel of the story and to cover some details that I felt would be more interesting later on. The switch in perspectives worked well in one of my other stories, but I had received many complaints about saying from whose perspective the writing was focused on. Tell me in the reviews whether you like this style of writing or prefer only one perspective. If you like the multiple perspectives, tell me if you want me to use a heading stating whose perspective it is or just try writing in a way that lets you figure it out.


	3. Chapter 3

Disclaimer: I do not own I.S. and no copyright infringement is intended.

"Speaking/Reading"

Ichika's Perspective

I woke up covered in cold sweat. I had another nightmare. Ever since I was able to recover from the accident, I've been periodically experiencing these dreams. For some reason though I could never grasp at what I was exactly so scared about. Even after three years of have the same dream pop in and out, I still wasn't exactly sure what it was that scared me so much. The only thing I could distinctly remember when I woke up was the shadow of a maniacal smile and how it caused my entire body to shake more and more violently the longer I had to stare at it.

There was only one question that ever plagued my mind since then. What had exactly happened during the time I couldn't remember? Although Chifuyu-nee had told me I had simply gone out of my way to help that girl, I couldn't help but feel that she was hiding something. My sister had tried to put on a strong face, but I saw that she was gripping her skirt the whole time. She was usually hard to read, but she always had the habit of fumbling with things when she was stressed out similar to my bad habit of flexing my hand when I was excited.

I was also bothered by the fact that I had no idea how I could have met a French girl somewhere between Russia and Germany. I don't even think my flight was supposed to take me there that year. Although I hadn't known that she was speaking French at the time, I gradually picked up the fact after learning virtually every language for countries that had their hands on the I.S. or centered their resources heavily research and development for the machine. There were also several other things that just bothered me, but the most concerning one was the fact that I seemed to be able to absorb so much information in such a short amount of time. It had only been three years, yet I learned so many things without so much as trying unless it came to I.S. engineering. I was never really the brainy type.

"Ik-kun, it is morning already! Come make down and make breakfast so that I can look over the homework I gave you!" a cheery voice called through the intercom.

Well I guess my sudden boost in intelligence probably had to do with being babysat by Taba-nee. She was on a completely separate level of genius in comparison to everyone on the planet and possibly some aliens. It wouldn't have surprised me too much that just spending three years with her would do that. I mean that did seem to be the case since most of the best I.S. developers, doctors, and economic leaders from Japan used to be in the same high school as her.

"Ik-kun, can you make me some of your special curry?" a certain rabbit eared woman said while hopping about the room like a rabbit.

"For breakfast?" I asked teasingly.

Although she was such a genius, I couldn't help but feel that she had never really grown up. It was almost as if she were perpetually stuck with the mind of a child. Despite this, she was my current babysitter. I could only wonder how many people would simply lose their composure should they find out that this was the genius that had essentially made the whole protective male obsolete as an oversight when she introduced the I.S. to the world.

"Oh Ik-kun, can you send me the programs you have been working on? I want to see if you have gotten better at designing I.S. weapons."

"Okay Taba-nee. Please look over the files while I go and make breakfast," I said while opening a holographic screen to quickly transmit the data with one hand and starting up the stove to prepare the curry.

The big rabbit then quickly hoped about to the dining table in the room over. The quiet atmosphere with the occasional sizzle left me to my thoughts, or so I had wished. During the time I was cooking, I would occasionally hear whispers emanate from somewhere. I used to ask Taba-nee if she had heard anything unusual, but she would always get scared whenever I did so. She wasn't scared that some intruders had managed to get into the lab. The lab was too secure for that. What she was afraid of was that some monsters had managed to get in.

At some point I tried to track where the sound was coming from with Taba-nee. I ended up walking until I found myself before several I.S. cores that were used for testing. The whispers would always stop the moment I walked through the door. The whispers continued, but I stopped looking for the source for quite a while now since it was probably just some strange echo phenomenon.

"These are quite interesting designs Ik-kun. I especially like your application of the Active Inertia Canceller. I'm going to send it to the Germans so that Chi-chan can see how much you've learned," Taba-nee called out, which had snapped me out of my reverie.

"But aren't I going to go meet up with Chifuyu-nee at the Dunois Corporation today? Couldn't I just show her my progress there?"

"Just think of it as showing your anonymous appreciation to the Germans for taking such good care of you. Besides, the French might try to take your designs for their own purposes even though they are already receiving a special I.S. core."

"I still don't see why you want to give them the first I.S. core you ever built," I huffed. It was originally the core that my sister used for the first Mondo Grosso. It felt a shame that we had to give it away in order to maintain the power balance. The thought was selfish, but I still held some attachment to the core since it belonged to Chifuyu-nee and allowed her to shine so brightly in the world.

"Is breakfast ready yet?" Taba-nee asked impatiently. She honestly had every right to be impatient at this point. The cooking was taking much longer than it should have. It was only when Taba-nee had complained had I noticed that the curry was beginning to burn because I was too busy thinking about the core.

"Sorry! It'll take a few more seconds! I just need to press the rewind button," I called out. Though this button was very convenient since I often found myself drifting in and out every now and then, it just felt absurdly stupid as to how Taba-nee invented a rewind button so that she wouldn't burn her food on accident anymore. In other words, she was breaking the laws of physics and chemistry for something as minor as this. I knew she had done it before when constructing the I.S., but this was very small in comparison to something that could pretty much wipe out several countries on its own.

"Can… hear…" a voice rang through the hallways.

"Taba-nee… Did you say something," I responded out of reflex.

I heard a sudden rattle and saw a couple of metal rabbit ears hover slightly above my head the moment I had asked. I guess the short answer was no. Honestly, why was she so scared of things like ghost and monsters? If she was so scared she could easily invented something to trap ghosts like in that one movie. In fact, I wouldn't have put it past her to have already made one before.

Charlotte's Perspective

"Your schedule for today is to perform a simple demonstration to show off the Raphael Revive's capabilities and how its flexible customization allows for the pilots to adapt themselves to multiple situations. We have some very important visitors and it is imperative that you do not make a mistake," the son of the company's president stated curtly towards me.

"A demonstration… But I thought that I was to perform I.S. testing and demonstrations only among the higher ups. We also have many other capable pilots that you normally use for the demonstrations. Why the sudden change?" I foolishly asked to sate my curiosity.

My older half-brother, Charles, was always cross with me. I wasn't too surprised, and I could understand why though. I was the illegitimate child after all. What was probably worse to him was that I was also younger, which meant that father was not simply content with having Charles born. To Charles, I probably was a constant reminder that father had never loved his real family enough.

Though I could understand where Charles's anger stemmed from, I still had my own issues with the whole situation. No one in the real family welcomed me with open arms since I was the offspring of the mistress. My own father never talked to me in person after the first time since I was his symbol of shame. This just left me with my half-brother and his mother who would unsurprisingly give me difficulties for simply existing. Although the living conditions were difficult, I just simply knew it wouldn't have been wise to raise any objections given my status.

"The Brunhilde, Chifuyu Orimura and her brother are coming to present the Dunois family an I.S. core. Normally we wouldn't be putting on a show to anyone who wasn't interested in purchasing our I.S. models, but rumor has it that her brother has great interest in the I.S. and has been under the care of Professor Shinonono. I assume you can figure out the rest," Charles said while dismissing my interest.

"Did you say that Ichika was coming?" I asked incredulously, but hopefully at the same time.

"How do you know his name was Ichika?" the man asked with a stern look on his face.

"Ichika and his sister helped me out when I was kidnapped. If it weren't for them, I wouldn't know what would have happened to me," I answered quickly in fear of incurring my half-brother's wrath for knowing something he hadn't.

"I see… So that's how it is. I guess it is only natural for someone of your stature to cling on to someone too good for yourself. But your family's natural tendencies might benefit the Dunois Corporation greatly. A thirteen year old such as this boy probably wouldn't know the difference between love and being in heat anyways," Charles said quite rudely with every intention of making those words dig deep into my heart.

"Those aren't my intentions. He probably doesn't even remember who I am. It's just I could never properly thank him at the time since I couldn't speak in Japanese at the time," I responded passionately, yet doing so had made some old regrets resurface.

Ichika never actually knew who I was after the incident after all. I hadn't even realized it until his big sister had revealed that Ichika lost a day's worth of his memories due to the cruel operation that monster performed on him. Despite the fact that I was a complete stranger to him, he had shown me such kindness by simply passing his hand through my hair. Ichika had comforted me by assuring me that everything was okay when he had no obligations to do so. Even if he couldn't remember what he had done for me or considered what he could remember as insignificant, I couldn't let his deeds go without at least showing him my gratitude.

"So you say… I have an interesting idea; I'll give you the freedom to meet your savior in person. Remember to leave your I.S. in the testing room and don't you dare tarnish the Dunois name more than you have already."

With that, my half-brother strutted out of the room. This left me to my own thoughts in the testing room that served as my accommodations as well. Mother, was this the life you wanted for me? Am I to be a lab rat for the rest of my life or until my usefulness as a pilot ran dry? Had I run my share of happiness dry with you in the cottage among the flowers?

What was I thinking? Of course Mother had no intentions of forcing me to live a life destitute of happiness. I knew Mother loved me. Even now I could recall how often she had tucked me in and sang me songs. She had told me many bed time stories and played with me until I became too tired to stay awake. Mother had often talked about how a knight in shining armor would one day sweep me off my feet and take me far away. Just thinking about some of my memories with Mother reminded me that she had only wanted me to be happy.

Mother just hadn't realized that Father didn't hold the same feelings as she had towards me. He had his obligations and duties so I couldn't expect to have the same experience with him as I had with Mother.

In any case, this was probably going to be the only chance I got to apologize to Ichika so long as I didn't fumble in the demonstration. My brother was always more flippant than Father was and was also quite whimsical in his decisions. I wouldn't put it past Charles to change his mind should I provide a less than satisfactory performance later today. I better try my best to impress Ichika if I wanted to be able to thank him in person.

"Please don't let me down," I whispered to the necklace that I found myself clutching in my hand. It might have just been my imagination or my hopes playing tricks on me, but I always felt that my I.S. would respond to me whenever I did so. It always seemed to give me a tiny glow and sensation of warmth as if to cheer me on.

Ichika's Perspective

"Welcome to the Dunois Corporation. My name is Raphael Dunois and I am the president of the company. This here is my son Charles Dunois. We will be guiding you through our research and training facilities as you have requested," a fairly fat blond gentleman stated with great enthusiasm in French. This was then quickly followed by the secretary repeating the exact same thing in Japanese.

Even though this was the president of one of the largest I.S. developers, he was quite absurd in many ways. While I could understand that that he had very likely named his business after the family name as a means to cement the fact that the company's ownership would be passed from one generation to the next, he named his I.S. suits after himself in both the first and second generation models. How egotistical could he get? It was also very clear that he may have been enjoying his success too much given how it had all gone to his stomach.

Even though it seemed as if I was being judgmental, I really wasn't. I will openly admit that the man had produced a superb piece of machinery when they had entered the second generation development race. The thing that was bugging me was that the jolly man neglected the fact that he was starting the race far too late. While riding on the temporary success of the model, I haven't heard of any news of him starting any third generation I.S. production. I even distinctly recall that he had arrogantly stated, "My second generation would be good enough to sweep the floor with any early third generation I.S.!"

"Be courteous Ichika," Chifuyu-nee stated while whacking the back of my head.

I had forgotten that my sister always seemed to know what I was thinking when I was near her. Whether it was because we were so close or because she was thinking similar thoughts was beyond me. Hopefully it was the second.

Just as I was thinking this, my sister gave me a gentle nudge to my side. The fact that it hadn't hurt made me happy since I wasn't wrong. But she was right that I needed to be courteous. I was presenting myself to someone with a strong hold on the I.S. world.

"It is very nice to meet you Mr. Dunois and thank you for this opportunity to see your facilities. Please forgive me if I say anything or make gestures that are considered out of line. I have not perfected French speaking skills yet, and I am still trying to learn the culture and customs of your country," I said with my hand extended for a handshake.

"Show off," Chifuyu-nee silently whispered with a faint smile on her lips.

"For someone who is apologizing for not mastering out language, you are quite adept in showing off your French," the young man standing beside Mr. Dunois confidently stated in Japanese while taking the handshake that was intended for his father.

The only thing that passed my mind was that the father and son were complete opposites of each other. While one reminded me of old jolly Saint Nick, the other made me think that he came straight out of a dictionary entry for manly. He was clearly lean, but if I observed closely enough, I could see distinct outlines of a strong build pushing gently on the fabric of his suit. Just from that, I could see a strong and well balanced man. He also had a fair face with no facial hair. Charles's irises were a deep shade of blue. His blond hair, though long, was braided in the back, which sent out the image of a butler or gentleman. The demeanor was completely different in almost every aspect.

Not wanting to be outdone in front of my sister, I responded in German, "I could say the same for your Japanese. But that's to be expected nowadays. The I.S. world has made it more imperative that we all become well-versed in all languages in order to truly thrive in this era."

"I couldn't agree more my friend. I must say that I'm impressed that you know so much at such a young age. I do look forward to what you are capable of in the future," Charles continued on in English.

"As do I in the near future, but do tell me. Is your father planning on having you design the French's third generation I.S. model as a rite of passage for the family business?" I continued in Russian while tightening my grip on the handshake.

"For better or for worse, my father wishes to keep the reigns for a bit longer. While it gives me more time to supplement my meager skills, I still wish to take a step further into the I.S. world," the blond man continued in Cantonese without backing down from my strengthened grip.

"They're getting along right?" the president asked Chifuyu-nee with sweat starting to show up on his forehead.

"That's just their way of sizing each other up. It's kind of cute to see these boys duking it out the way they are," she responded with a light laugh following soon afterwards.

"Why don't we go and start the tour? We can talk business later. The staff here is quite excited to see you two. So we shouldn't keep them waiting for your arrival now should we?" Charles said in Spanish to egg me on our little competition.

"Are we the guests or the show now?" I huffed in Korean.

The conversation more or less went back in forth whenever we walked down hallways. The both of us would put a pause on our game to pay proper attention to the development of the individual parts, the calculations in perfecting the aspects of each piece, the science behind maximizing the maximum output and battery life, etc. Though I knew most of the theoretical and had designed a few pieces of equipment myself in Taba-nee's lab, I was still awestruck by how so many scientists had gathered together to propose ideas and how quickly they were either approved or discarded. It was still nowhere near the genius's level, but it was fascinating as to how the many was able to push forward in the research with such zeal and efficiency.

"I hoped that you have enjoyed the tour, but I'm sad to say that it will be coming to a close soon. Luckily we have saved the best for last," Mr. Dunois stated to us with pride in his voice as he lead us to another room with a large glass window with desks completely filled with controls.

This was what I had been looking forward to for the entire tour. While every individual aspect concerning the I.S. was amazing in its own way, there was no doubt that the simple performance and specs of the machine were what everyone truly wanted to see. It was the weapon's superiority that changed the world to what it was. It was a weapon that could shift the entire flow of civilization even with the smallest improvements. Almost nothing was as awe-inspiring as the sheer capabilities of the Infinite Stratos, and even those tended to be the pilots.

"Engaging Simulation… Objective: Shoot Down All Targets While Avoiding AI Programs. Initiating Testing Field: Atlantis," a female mechanical voice rang throughout the room.

Soon after, the room was quickly lit up as light quickly rushed through the windows. My eyes were blinded for a few milliseconds before it was greeted by a small destroyed city flooded with dark blue water. Waves came up and crashed along the sides of the broken buildings with a resulting white spray flying into the air. The city was moving about as several different I.S. began flying or hovering above the water. A few red targets were scattered throughout the ruined city.

After taking in the sight, I saw three things take up space on the top of the window. One appeared to be a timer while the others were counters, which I assumed either kept a record of targets hit or the amount of times the pilot had taken a hit. At the bottom of the window, a list of weapons appeared. It was very likely there to indicate what was in the pilot's inventory. There were also a few words in French that read, "Camera View."

The only thing left for me to see through the window was at the very center. Through it, I saw a young blond haired girl donning on an orange I.S. suit. While it was very reminiscent of the Raphael Revive, it had some differences to it that had set it apart from the model that I had normally seen.

For only an instant, I was able to see the girl's face as she glanced at the camera.

"Do you wish to start the performance?" Charles asked while pointing me to the control panel.

I took my eyes off the girl before thinking too much about her and looked back to Chifuyu-nee and Mr. Dunois who just gave me a small nod in approval. I wasn't dense enough to not know that this tour wasn't really for my sister, but for me. Even still, it felt so strange to have been given the opportunity to walk through the facilities and now I was going to initiate the field testing. I may have been born in a fairly prestigious spot, but I was still only thirteen. I could never describe how amazing this felt.

After walking to the console, I pressed the button and said in French, "Mission start."

Author's Notes

#1: For the most part these notes will just be here to clarify some things that may not have been so obvious while reading. Please favorite and follow if you liked this story. Also send reviews of things you liked or disliked so that I can try to improve the work. Send questions and I will probably respond to some of them in the next chapter.

#2: I ended up using the same name as Charlotte's disguise for Charles because I felt it was very appropriate for the story and how I have been trying to set it up. Originally I was planning on naming him Raphael, but it didn't feel quite as good when I thought about how tough it actually would to be the older half-brother of an illegitimate sibling.

#3: Tell me how you felt about Charles in the review section and why. (i.e His two-faced nature or justifiable anger.)


	4. Chapter 4

Disclaimer: I do not own I.S. and no copyright infringement is intended.

"Speaking/Reading"

Ichika's Perspective

Who was this girl? It was the only question that I could ask myself as I witnessed a girl who was probably the same age as me perform at a level that I previously thought could only have been done by some Mondo Grosso contestants back when the first generation models had just come out.

I was having difficulty keeping up with the pace of the exhibition. I understood that a change in speed was a common occurrence since the machine also increased the pilot's reaction times, but it just didn't seem too possible at this point. In just under fifteen seconds the pilot had sniped all visible targets and taken down a couple of the AI programs.

It was amazing to see the girl then quickly charge into the fray while performing a quick shift to exchange her sniper with a machine gun and a magnum. Though doing so had gotten her surrounded by some Uchiganes, Raphael Revives and an assortment of other models, she made quick work off them by taking advantage of the Absolute Defense function of the I.S. by shooting at all of the lethal points. All of the close range enemies were annihilated as soon as they had fallen into her range of attack without having so much as a chance to even swing or shoot whatever weapon they held.

The demonstration continued and as time went on, the setting of the fight seemed to get harder and harder. At some point enough shots were on screen that I could actually describe the view as watching a Touhou game, but using a three dimensional space instead of a two dimensional plane. I even saw the girl be forced to dive underwater to eventually avoid taking hits and still continue the offensive. Though it should've severely inhibited the machine's fighting capabilities by forcing her to have to adjust her shots in order to hit the target, it didn't seem to matter so much because most of the shots still hit. The shots just weren't pinpointed exactly on the fatal points, which just made it so that she had to fire a couple more shots to compensate for it.

"Mr. Dunois, who exactly is that girl," my sister asked the president while watching the pilot fend off some aquatic oriented machines.

"She's our best pilot. You could probably say that she is our hidden ace if it comes down to the point that we have to compete with the next generation of I.S. models," the president said with a small smile on his face.

If this was the reason why he was deeply underestimating the next generation specs, I could honestly go along with his train of thought. The potential specs of the Raphael Revive and how far it could be pushed by a skilled pilot definitely made developing a third-generation machine seem a waste of time and resources. This was furthered along by the fact that the current was still about my age.

While the Mr. Dunois was staring rather fondly through the screen at the girl, I noticed a small frown grow upon Charles's face. The only logical thing that passed through my mind was that the girl must have been his sister. Although I had only gotten a glimpse of her face, she did seem familiar. I guess that it must have just been the family resemblance that made me think so.

In any case, it might have been because of the pilot that Charles turned out so impressively. Ever since the I.S. had been introduced to the world, many aspiring men had their prospective futures taken away from them. Charles might have thought that the girl could and would take hold of the company due to the fact that this girl could pilot and to a degree that was now starting to catch my sister's attention.

"Do you get compared to your sister often too?" I asked Charles quietly.

Although I had thought it was obvious as to whom the pilot was, it seems that it wasn't supposed to be. Charles just gave me a look that just screamed how. While normally bringing up something as touchy a subject as this would make someone angry, Charles didn't express too much emotion other than the look. I didn't know if this was because he was just trying to professional or that he understood that I was just trying to sympathize with him since I probably never grow out of my own sister's shadow.

"It's not that Ichika, but thanks for the concern. I have something to ask of you though. A cert_," Charles said before the entire building began to shake violently.

"Warning! This is not a drill. Intruders in possession of I.S. suits are attacking the facility. All pilots subdue the threat as soon as possible. All noncombatants please proceed to the nearest bunkers. I repeat_" the intercom sounded off before the sound of explosions engulfed the room in noise.

Due to everything that was going on, Mr. Dunois had fallen to the floor. Charles was quickly fiddling with the control panels to disengage the simulation room while Chifuyu-nee started to help pick up the fallen president. I, instead of trying to aid everyone else in the room, grasped the core that I had hidden in my jacket hoping that doing so would make sure nothing bad would happen. It was superstitious, but it certainly felt better than being useless.

It was too bad that it was all superstition though. Right after Charles had disengaged the simulation, a part of the roof fell down right on top of Mr. Dunois and my sister. The very sight and thought that Chifuyu-nee could have been crushed to death had caused me to cry out, "Chifuyu-nee," as soon as the force of the wind from the impact had passed.

"Bzzz… Wrong answer Ichi-ni-san," a feminine voice rang out to my worried cry. It had sounded familiar, but it was reminding me of the person who was currently under the source of the voice.

As the smoke cleared, I saw a person piloting a purplish-blue Silent Zephyrs looking around the room as if she was searching for something. How exactly did she get her hands on the British's third generation prototype? The British hadn't even announced that they had started third-generation designs yet. The only reason why I even knew about it was because I had contributed in designing one of its weapons.

The situation was quite obviously bad, but I could be a lot worse if I knew what this woman was here for. It was quite obvious as to what it was too since the timing of the attack and the fact that she came to this room first were far too convenient to be mere coincidence. The only question was how she had figured out that Core Number Zero-Zero-One was here in the first place. It was probably the same way that she had acquired the Silent Zephyrs.

"Ewwww… I think I might have squashed a bug on my way down here. I hope you don't mind the mess," she directed towards Charles, who, for some strange reason, was giving her a stern look. How he was not shitting his pants at the moment or breaking down from seeing his own father get crushed was beyond me. I already knew that I didn't want to see the president's corpse, but I was truly worried if my sister had managed to get away from the falling roof.

I could confidently say that I almost regretted trying to look for my sister at the base of the rubble. While on one hand I found my sister just under the I.S. and unconscious, I also saw the fate of Raphael Dunois. I was both relieved with the knowledge that Chifuyu-nee was fine, but terrified at the sight of the corpse.

It was horrific since I could barely recognize his mangled body. Several of his joints were now contorted in weird angles. There were multiple protrusions extending from various parts of his body. Some were metal rails and others were the ragged ends of broken bones, but all were dyed a deep shade of red as a liquid dripped off of them. Seriously, how exactly was Charles not breaking down?

"Ohhhh… What do we have here? Why isn't it the Brunhilde? Maybe I should take a little break from my mission and have little fun with big sis?" the pilot said with a creepy laugh while stretching her arm towards her new target.

Before I could say anything though, a shot came whizzing past the pilot's head. If it weren't for the I.S.'s ability to enhance the pilot's reaction time and protect the pilot, the shot would have blown off the bitch's head. The shot did, however, force the pilot of the Silent Zephyrs to move from her position to a position far away from Chifuyu-nee.

"Charlotte, buy us time so that we can escape into the bunkers. Do not allow the pilot to leave this room," Charles commanded the young girl as he quickly made his way to pick up my sister.

"Roger!" Charlotte said while charging at the I.S. with what looked like the Shield Pierce. While the strategy seemed sound since the Silent Zephyrs appeared to be a long-ranged unit due to the Star Breaker's long barrel, I knew that the I.S. was in fact a close-range combat unit that actually made the Shield Pierce tactic not only useless but dangerous without someone to distract the pilot.

"Interesting idea there, but is you're weapon faster than my beam weapons?" the Silent Zephyr's pilot yelled while releasing several controlled bit pieces that would simultaneously guard the intruder and blast Charlotte to pieces.

"Stop!" I yelled at the top of me lungs in desperation of the situation despite the fact that it was probably pointless since these two were both seasoned pilots and wouldn't stop for distractions.

Strangely enough though, the pilot of the Raphael Revive quickly stopped her attack. Before the bits could properly surround Charlotte, she quickly boosted away and stood next to her brother and my sister. It was quite fortunate for her too because she had narrowly dodged the onslaught of rapid beam fire that came from the bits.

"Ah Ichi-ni-san, you can't just go telling someone my secrets. That's just not fair," the intruder said with a pout as she armed her Star Breaker for more mid and long range combat.

We had to stop the fight right now or else everyone in this room was going to die. It was already bad enough that gunshots were going to go flying across the room, but this was an I.S. fight. The only way for it not to escalate to having the entire building be destroyed with us in it was for it to have been close quarters, but that was no longer an option. While I did have a solution, it would have been unwise to give the core to the enemy.

Something was then calling out through my mind with a few words and static noise saying, "Call… me…" I had to just block out the noise for now. Right now I needed to draw the pilot's attention.

"This is what you're looking for right?" I said with a voice full of determination as I drew out a shining white sphere from my pocket.

"Oh how sweet! Are you going to give big sis the core as a present?" the woman stated while lowering her gun ever so slightly.

"Not exactly… Let's make this interesting by playing a game of tag. I get a minute head start, and if you can catch me, I'll give you the core. If you can't catch me, well I'm sure you can figure out the rest," I said with a cocky tone to support my bluff.

"Sure thing Ichi-ni-san. Just let me get rid of the nuisances first. I don't exactly want big sis to get in the way of our fun," the pilot stated before raising her gun towards the Raphael Revive's pilot, who was now guarding my unconscious sister.

"Don't harm them! If you hurt them, I'll destroy the core! Taba-nee taught me how to do so in case it ever became a necessity," I quickly exclaimed to regain her intruder's attention.

"Don't be such a spoilsport. But I guess it wouldn't be any fun to take down the Brunhilde unless she was at least in a condition to squirm when I crush her. Plus I would be punished very badly if I couldn't end up retrieving the core permanently," the woman relented.

"Charlotte, take the two to the bunkers. It is very likely that there are other intruders in I.S. suits blocking the way," I said in French while waiting for her to grab the new president and my sister. I didn't expect an immediate response since I was effectively telling her to abandon me to save two of the most important people on the planet. Most people would have some hesitation since it was hard to abandon someone when you could help them, but in the end most would still go through if it was for the greater good.

"I refuse!" the girl responded passionately to my demands.

"Are you daft? Get the others out of here. You're no match for her unit in these conditions!" I retorted incredulously.

"I'm_" she said in an attempt to interject, but failed when I refused to hear it.

"She's not interested in killing me, but won't have any qualms in killing you! Now get out of here!"

"He's right you know. Phantom Task still has some uses for Ichi-ni-san. I suggest you take this time to get away before I decide to have a little fun with you," the Silent Zephyrs's pilot said with a bored yawn.

"Do as they say. If she had wanted to kill him, she wouldn't have bothered letting him after the threat. Remember they are still after the core," Charles commanded Charlotte and gave me a look telling me not to do anything stupid or rash beyond what I was already doing.

It still took a few moments before the girl screamed, "Dammit. I'll come back to help you," and quickly rush out the room with the two in her arms.

"And with that, I'll be off," I quickly said before dashing off.

I didn't even bother to hear the pilot's response since I needed every second and some more if I expected to escape safely. The ideal place to escape the woman was if I went looking for a room designed to be able sustain damage from I.S. attacks. While the bunker was specifically designed for that, I couldn't tell if it was fortified enough to handle the amount of power a third generation I.S. could dish out. If it wasn't properly equipped, I would just end up endangering everyone hiding in the bunker. The only other place that could sustain the damage would have been a testing room, which was now blocked by the Silent Zephyrs.

I couldn't even try hiding. While it was more likely that someone had informed the intruder of the deal today, I couldn't assume that it was so. If the intruder had figured out a way to track the core, hiding would just be suicide since I would have just been waiting for the inevitable.

My best hope was probably going to involve finding some of the Dunois Corporation's pilots. While the Silent Zephyrs have much higher specs than the Raphael Revive, I don't think the pilot had exactly mastered the machine yet given how much lag time there was in firing the bits. Hopefully if I could surround myself with enough of them, the intruder would try to escape. A seasoned pilot would be able to tell that trying to fend off multiple enemies with a handicap was not going to end well. If she were a fool, then the fight would just be an endurance match for the French to wait for the other countries to send in aid. Considering how the building had crumbled to the ground yet, I could safely assume that everyone I needed for the plan was outside. The only problem with the plan was that I had to go outside, which might be the current hunting ground of who knows how many enemies.

"Found you little brother!" I sinister yell echoed through the hall before a shot missed my leg by mere centimeters.

Screw it all. It was better to risk it all than be stuck with this psychopath. I didn't even care that she was referring to Chifuyu-nee and me as her siblings.

* * *

I really had to thank Chifuyu-nee and the president for giving me a tour of the facilities. If it weren't for that, I wouldn't have known enough about the building's layout to escape the pilot. I found myself still running and miraculously keeping ahead of the I.S. by making several sharp turns into hallways too small for the unit to pass through.

It was also quite fortunate that the woman was true to her words in that she wanted to keep me alive. If she was lying or just got serious, I'd either be riddled with holes or crushed under the roof. The thought of becoming Swiss cheese or a mangled corpse made me shudder in fear.

After a few more minutes of running, I managed to escape from the building with the Silent Zephyrs nowhere in sight. Gasping, I managed to cry out for help in French. What I got as a response were several metallic clicks.

Looking about, I saw that my gamble had not only failed, but was even worse than I could imagine. What I saw before my eyes was a warzone with several battered French pilots struggling to force their machines to move to no avail. I was surrounded by three second generation machines from varying countries and China's third generation prototype, and there wasn't going to be any support from the surrounding countries for some time as well. I jumped straight into the fire didn't I?

"Restrain the boy. The boss will be happy if we can bring the child back," said the one in the most advanced machine.

"What is taking Madoka so long? Isn't she supposed to be back with the core by now?"

"Maybe she's having fun with the Brunhilde? You know how much she loathes her existence."

"Should we have some_" the fourth pilot had tried to say before I jumped kicked her in the rib section, which surprisingly made her cough blood out.

Was it stupid of me to launch a preemptive strike on a team of I.S. pilots currently piloting top of the line suits? It probably was, but I could take advantage of one of the machine's weaknesses that no other I.S. or weapon could do. I could easily bypass the Absolute Defense since it was only able to block lethal or crippling attacks. Being a human, I had my doubts that anything I could do in one attack would be registered on the machine's sensors. Though I must say, I never expected that I had the strength to perform such an effective kick given the difference in height and the fact that I don't recall doing any special training for such strength. I wasn't complaining since it was helping my situation quite a bit, but it was something I had to wonder later.

The attack had taken the women completely surprise. I didn't know if it was because I was fighting back or because I actually landed a solid blow. In open honesty, I was surprised that they thought that I wouldn't fight back. I already knew that they wanted me alive, so I had no fear of dying. It would have been stupid of me not to take advantage of all the handicaps given to me.

I soon tried running out of the group while the fourth pilot was still coughing with the rest just too stunned to move. The question was how long until they regained their composure.

"Idiots, he's getting away."

The answer to my question, about five seconds. I then felt one of my legs get surrounded by a large metal hand before finding myself dangling in the air with my face looking directly into the pilot's face. She had a light trickle of blood trailing from her mouth.

"That really hurt you know," she said menacingly while baring her teeth at me.

"I'm so sorry, but you got to keep your head in the game," I said before giving a resounding headbutt, which didn't have the proper moment to stun the woman.

"Real cheeky kid," she hissed.

This looks like the end of the road. At least I could say that I did fairly well against the I.S., or at least much better than most of the world's previous military. I had to be chased by five pilots and I even dealt some serious injury to one. Although I probably was thinking to highly of myself since I had the major advantage of being valuable to the enemy. Even though I had failed in getting the core away, I could find out what this group wanted to do with me. It did peak my curiosity a bit since it was the first time any large organization looked at me instead of my sister or Taba-nee.

"Get away from Ichika!" a voice quickly approached.

Before any could react though, I heard a resounding blast and saw an accompanying sight of my captor arching forward. I think I had even heard the sound of a crack, which might have been her spine breaking from the impact. She soon let go of me as her machine dematerialized.

I landed nimbly and caught the woman that had fallen out of the machine. I laid her down and wondered if I just had a knack for being saved by sheer coincidence or just had the luck of the devil. The only thing that really mattered was that I was safe, but for how long.

The situation, though much better than before, was still pretty bad. While I did realize that Charlotte was a great pilot, she still had to fend off at least three more intruders. This may not have seemed like a lot in comparison to the army she was fighting in the performance, these were human pilots that could deviate from programming and one was a third generation model. I didn't have a hand in the designs for the Chinese's prototype so most of its capabilities were still a mystery to me as well. For all I knew, Charlotte my accidently play right into the enemies strengths like how she had nearly done so with the still absent Silent Zephyrs.

"Charlotte… How much energy does your I.S. still have?" I asked hesitantly. Though she hadn't taken a hit as far as I knew, the I.S., especially non-military models, could only function for so long without a recharge. It couldn't function as long if the machine was pushed to its limits, which was a given. Considering the difficulty level of the demonstration with the additional water combat strain and the fact that she seemed so concerned about my wellbeing, it was probably safe to assume that she went without recharging to save me.

"Enough for you to get to the closest bunker," she said before dashing off to take on the leader.

This girl was reckless to a certain degree that forced me to ask myself, "Why didn't she just take the core and run?" It was the obvious move to do. Sure Charlotte would have to do some explaining to my sister, but she didn't have any obligations to help me. Did she?

Now that I had gotten to see her face for quite a few times, I started to realize that I hadn't recognized her because of Charles. Everything about her was somehow familiar. The fluidity of how she moved, her reluctance to let me go on my foolish endeavor, the passion she used to fuel her actions and the care she was showing me reminded me of only one person. Although she had changed a bit from three years ago, this had to be the girl from back then.

"Are you going to leave her to do all the fighting," a mysterious voice echoed through my mind.

How could I? It was clear as day that she couldn't win with her conditions. With every hit she took, her barrier would drop, which would bring her closer and closer to her demise. There was no way I could just up and abandon her. I had to help her, but what could I do in this situation. I was powerless. There was no way I could do anything in this fight besides get in the way.

"Do you seek power?"

Of course I sought for power. No. That was inaccurate. I need power.

"Why do you seek power? What do you wish to do with it?"

I'm just a burden as I am now. Without power, I can't do anything. Without it, I'm forced to abandon others. Without it, I can't protect those who I care for. I need it to protect my family and friends. I need it to protect those who would call me their ally. I need it to go help Charlotte.

"If you are willing to submit yourself to me, call my name. Call my name and wield my strength as your own. Use it with all your might and push further. Use me to fulfill your wishes."

Instinctively and without reason, I raised the I.S. core in my right hand forward and called out a name that I both knew and didn't know at the same time.

"Byakushiki."

Author's Notes

#1: For the most part these notes will just be here to clarify some things that may not have been so obvious while reading. Please favorite and follow if you liked this story. Also send reviews of things you liked or disliked so that I can try to improve the work. Send questions and I will probably respond to some of them in the next chapter.

#2: The way Madoka refers to Ichika is actually a pun for one, two, three those of you who don't get it.


	5. Chapter 5

Disclaimer: I do not own I.S. and no copyright infringement is intended.

"Speaking/Reading"

Ichika's Perspective

What was happening? Something was completely wrong with my senses and body. Everything seemed to be moving so slowly and my body seemed to have trouble keeping up with what I willed it to do. The bullets that had been flying now seemed to be slowly drifting in the air and I could barely feel myself moving my fingers despite imagining myself gripping my hand. Was something wrong with the I.S. or was this just the machine's affect in altering my perception of time?

A screen full of text appeared before me reading, "Warning! File corruption was detected! Materialization of the left arm and upward thrusters was unsuccessful. Flight capabilities have been disabled. Weapon data has been corrupted, materializing all useable weapons. Damages to power routes have been detected. Absolute Defense function cannot be sustained. Structural materialization cannot be sustained. Forced shutdown will commence in one minute. Detected pilot sensory system overload, system calibration has been initiated."

As I had continued reading the text, I gradually felt my perception of time slowly reach a more normal level. At least normal enough that it wouldn't interfere with what would come next. It was probably still a tad bit off since the intruders and Charlotte had noticed my actions, but they were all still trying to turn to face me. This was the perfect opportunity to at least land a decisive blow on one of the intruders.

Just as I contemplated about my course of action, a white blade that was as tall as I was outside the suit and as wide as I was soon materialized with the handle forming comfortably in the palm of my right hand. It was fairly reminiscent of the sword used in the White Knight incident, but it didn't have the same splendor as the one shown in the news. Unlike the one used in the incident, its edge was chipped to an extent that could only indicate how much destruction it wrought and its surface had many worn battle scars and dents. While the existence of this blade in my hands did confirm one thing I had always wanted to ask my sister, I had to focus on helping Charlotte.

Though I wanted to help, I still had to question how much I could do. I may have learned a lot from Taba-nee from designing parts or models, but I still hadn't piloted an I.S. before. My concern wasn't going to stop me, but I couldn't help but worry about whether or not I could actually move the damn thing.

"Here I come!" I yelled while quickly boosting into the closest intruder.

I wasn't able to swing my sword despite what I had wanted to do. The reason wasn't because the sword was too heavy for me to swing. The blade was quite light since the machine was doing the heavy lifting for me. The reason why my attack didn't come out as I had wanted was because I had underestimated the strength of the thrusters on the machine. Due to how fast the machine was able to accelerate, I ended up too close to my target, and my sword swing turned into a destructive blow from the hilt. While the attack wasn't what I had intended, it proved effective in throwing the pilot quite a distance with a noticeably large bluish barrier deploying and shattering from the Absolute Defense doing its best to protect her. When she had finally landed, fiery orange sparks flew everywhere from the frame scratching against the concrete.

Unfortunately, my sense of time completely normalized right after the attack as I noted the timer for my suit's shutdown didn't seem to lag as much anymore.

"Ichika, how in the wor_" Charlotte tried to ask before I was forced to interrupt her.

"Save it for later. Take down the two second generation I.S. pilots in forty five seconds starting now," I hastily said before readying my blade to stall the leader.

"Right," Charlotte immediately said while materializing two Gatling guns.

Charlotte's Perspective

As I began my bullet barrage on the two second generation pilots, Ichika began his battle with the leader. I couldn't help but stare at Ichika the whole time though. The boy was actually piloting the machine, and was putting up a fight. Because it was his first time though and because he only managed to materialize a fraction of the machine, his movements were still somewhat rough and basic. It did the job though since it appeared that the I.S.'s specs allowed him to barely keep up with his target. However, I did not know how long it would last.

"Enemy shield has been depleted," a pop up message said on my screen in a matter of seconds after most of my bullets had collided with the pilot Ichika had initially knocked down.

Before I could swing my other Gatling gun to focus on the remaining grunt, she had closed the distance between us and attempted to slash me with what looked like an axe. She yelled, "Pay attention to who you are fighting little girl!"

Instead of trying to dodge the attack though, I detached my equipment to take the brunt of the attack. The makeshift shield slowed down the attack enough for me to perform a sweep kick that toppled the machine. While this counter did cause severe damage to my leg's armor, it also gave me the chance to pin down my enemy.

I tried to pull out one of my guns, but realized that they were all empty of ammo since I had spent almost all of them during the exhibition and my attempt to save Ichika. The only gun that had ammo was the Gatling gun that was just destroyed for this moment. I also couldn't use my Shield Pierce since the weapon required me to use my nearly depleted energy. There was really only one option left in terms of weapons, but I didn't really relish the idea since it was a bit slow to drain the I.S. energy pool using a knife.

"I don't have enough time for this," I scowled angrily over the forty second time-limit while racking my brain to find a way to expedite the process of draining her shields.

There was really no way to do so. The suit just simply had too much energy to get rid of with a knife. It was honestly better if the Absolute Defense wasn't the only way to stop the machine. It wasn't like I could just knock out the pilot like the first one since my Shield Pierce would drain too much of my energy reservoir. What would Ichika do in this situation? He managed to escape one and actually hurt one badly before I came.

Wait a second. How did he hurt the first pilot in the first place? If I recalled correctly he just kicked her in the stomach. That was definitely a viable solution. I could just knock the pilot out if I hit her enough without pushing the machine to levels dangerous for the pilot.

"Charlotte, are you almost done?" Ichika called out loudly.

I needed to hurry. I just have to adjust the suit's power output. I'll be there soon Ichika.

Ichika's Perspective

"Just come with us quietly boy. Don't think that you've won just because you managed to get an I.S. to work. Our machines have a two generation gap and yours doesn't seem to be in any shape to continue," my opponent said with a taunting tone while wielding an oversized scimitar and a cannon shaped like a dragon's head.

"Says the person who hasn't been able to land a hit yet," I panted. I was honestly too tired to give a better retort. My machine's Active Inertia Canceller seemed to be malfunctioning at this point since the once light blade seemed to be getter a lot heavier rapidly. Though the timer on my clock showed that I still had fifteen seconds left, it seemed that my machine was shutting down more of its functions before dematerializing.

While my goal was just to buy enough time for Charlotte to finish the other two, a forty five second time limit seemed to be a steep order now. It was the best I could do given my conditions.

"Charlotte, are you almost done?" I asked with a bit of desperation seeping into my voice while dodging an invisible point blank shot from the enemy's cannon.

Soon after dodging the shot, I quickly pivoted my body to do a spin attack that lodged my sword into the cannon. The two of us then jumped away from each other as the weapon soon exploded from the blade cutting into it.

"So still think you're going to win," I said heavily.

There was no way I was going to stop this pilot. The conditions of the fight were just too unfair. I wasn't even sure Charlotte would be able to even put up a fight with this person after dealing with the other two. There was also the fact that we still had to be concerned about the fifth pilot that was still nowhere in sight.

"Have you forgotten about Madoka?" she retorted with a snarl.

"You mean the pilot of the Silent Zephyrs," I laughed out tiredly while voluntarily deactivating Byakushiki, which still had about seven seconds left to spare.

"Why are you laughing?"

"Why do you think I still have the core? Wasn't that her mission objective? Wasn't she supposed to be the one to retrieve the core?" I bluffed.

"Yeah, she was… Bullshit! There is no way that someone could take down an I.S. without another one!" she cried out in anger.

"Then tell me. Why isn't she here yet? All of the pilots are out here," I continued with a faint glint of hope.

"B-b-but how?" she stammered.

"How do you think? Same way I tried to deal with your friend," I said with a hysterical laugh.

"I'm here Ichika," Charlotte said while pulling up next to me.

While this may have initially appeared as a god send, it turned out to be a lie. My savior's machine finally ran out of energy and dematerialized. The horrible timing had caught Charlotte by surprise and she fell from the air. Thankfully I was close enough that I was able to catch the girl in my arms.

"You okay princess," I said playfully despite the situation. Why I was doing so was beyond me. It also seemed to beyond her since she just began to give a confused look with a light blush on her face.

"Well this works out just fine for me," our enemy stated as she started to walk towards the two of us menacingly. The pilot had sheathed her blade, which wasn't surprising at this point since the intruders seemed to have some special interest in me.

"I wouldn't get to close if I were you," I threatened while I was observing the distance between us and the leader.

"What're you going to do little boy? Both of you can't use an I.S. at the moment and I don't think you have the strength to stop me with your girlfriend in your arms like that," she taunted as she towered over us.

"Come Byakushiki"

A white light soon enveloped both Charlotte and me as my suit materialized. The light blinded my foe and I quickly shifted Charlotte into my left arm and used my right to attack before the pilot could move away. I swung my blade as quickly and as fiercely as I could.

What came next didn't make me too proud of what I had done though. While my attacks were definitely successful and were not fatal, I still overshot my attack strength and managed to break through the Absolute Defense. My actions made me sick as a red liquid soon began to spray towards the left and right. The visuals were soon accompanied by two dull thuds and several dissipating polygons.

It took us all a couple of seconds to register what had happened. It wasn't until my I.S. had completely run dry this time before anyone could react. I just stared at the result of my actions while Charlotte curled her face into my chest to avert her eyes from the scene. My opponent just staggered back a few steps and stared at the ground. Her eyes just widened and shook. The pilot's mouth just gaped and tried to form words to no avail.

"Well well well… That was quite the show Ichi-ni-san. I must say that you're quite the cold blooded pilot," a mirthful voice rang from the sky.

All three of us looked up to see the Silent Zephyrs hovering above us with the pilot's arm crossed over her chest. While the pilot of the Chinese prototype was giving a snarl for several possible reasons, both Charlotte and I just stared with disbelief and despair. We were royally fucked. I doubted anyone would have been able to think of the situation in any positive way.

"Ah… Don't give me that look. Why don't you come with me? You can bring your little girlfriend as well. I'm sure Mother will be pleased if the both of you come join Phantom Task," she smirked.

"You're shitting me! I can understand why you want the boy, but the girl as well? Isn't she supp_" the armless pilot tried to say before she was interrupted.

"Shut up you useless bitch," Madoka said before firing her Star Breaker.

The sound rang loudly. The simple sound drew our eyes to my now deceased foe. The sight, though not horrifying, was just too much for the two of us for what we saw was a gaping hole right where the pilot's heart should have been.

"W-w-why?" the woman gasped before collapsing.

"Phantom Task only needs the elite. The rest are expendable," Madoka said darkly.

I held Charlotte close to my chest. It wasn't like it was going to help, but it certainly felt better than just pissing my pants. I wasn't alone in this feeling as she quickly latched on to me for dear life.

"It's going to be okay Charlotte," I said weakly knowing full well that this psychopath was going to drag us to some shady organization soon.

"You bitch! You're going to pay for killing her!" a voice screamed from the distance.

I didn't even have time to turn my head in the direction of the sound for the person who had yelled zoomed into my vision and crashed straight into the Silent Zephyrs. Sparks scattered through the air as the two frames collided and scratched against each other at extreme speeds. It was only during the brief moment before the collision that I recognized the frame to be one of the ones used by the two pilots that Charlotte had been fighting just moments ago.

"Oho. It seems that you are still alive and kicking, though I must say you've become quite ugly since the last time I saw your face," Madoka bantered loudly to overwhelm the deafening crashing noises.

"She was our comrade!"

"She lost. End of story. Shall I put an end to yours as well?" the psychopath said maliciously while using a knife to deflect her opponent's giant axe.

"Just try it."

This was clearly a one sided fight in my eyes. While most would see the situation as a relatively equal match, it really wasn't. The only reason why the enraged pilot seemed to have stood a chance was because Madoka was just fooling around. She wasn't using any of her actually equipment other than the knife, which not only severely limited her offensive abilities, but limited her reach as well. This psychopath was just taunting her opponent to see how much she could push the woman's emotions.

But it was giving us an opening to escape.

"Charlotte, where is the nearest bunker?" I whispered softly.

"In the building. We just need to get to the elevator in the back, but I don't think I can walk there," she said softly.

"Why not?"

"My leg is a bit messed up from the fight earlier. Just_"

"Just hold on tight," I said not even bothering to listen to the rest of what she was going to say. It was already quite obvious as to what she wanted, and I wasn't going to have any of it.

* * *

We had managed to escape the battlefield and were currently navigating through the empty hallways of the building. Charlotte and that psychopath must have had a little skirmish in the building for some of the hallways were riddled with sear marks and bullet holes. While I was observing the scenery, I felt Charlotte fidget a bit in my arms. When I looked down to ask her what was wrong, she wrapped her arms around my neck and moved her mouth close to my face.

"Thank you," Charlotte said softly in my ear while tightening her arms around me.

"For what?" I tried to say stoically. I probably failed since I could feel my face get flushed from her moving her face so close just to whisper something into my ear.

"For always saving me," she giggled mirthfully.

"I'm pretty sure that you were the one doing most of the saving," I said jokingly.

"True," she retorted.

"Hey wasn't that the part where you say not at all," I said with a hurt face.

She just stuck her tongue at me and we continued on in silence for a while. I was silent because I was still trying to cope with what had happened. I had witnessed two people die, one of whom I had crippled. It was just all so much to take in and we still weren't out of the woods yet. Right now I was responsible for Charlotte's fate. If I couldn't get to the bunker before Madoka finished her business, Charlotte would be in serious danger.

"Ichika, I am really grateful for saving me for both today and that time three years ago," Charlotte said quietly with a somewhat sad face.

"So you really are the girl from back then. Who knew I'd met the daughter of Mr. Dunois back then," I said rather inattentively given my stress.

"You know that he's my Father? But why?" Charlotte asked with a jump.

"I kind of guessed by how he was looking at you during the demonstration. He was smiling quite proudly by how well you were piloting the I.S. at the time."

While I was curious as to why both siblings seemed so surprise by my guess, it wasn't really important at the time. It wasn't my business either. Some families like to keep some issues private and some didn't enjoy the idea of others prying into their secrets. They probably had their reasons as to why they didn't expect someone to make such an assumption.

"He was smiling?"

"Yeah, he said you were the secret ace of the company," I said while directing my gaze back down to Charlotte's now beaming face that was dripping with tears. The sight just made me hold onto Charlotte tightly. I just pulled her in closer. Nothing else had to be sad as I let her emotions rush through out of my sight. She didn't need anyone to look at her when she was going to be at her lowest point.

Was I like her when I was just a child? Did I cry like she did when she realized that a loved one wasn't going to be by her side anymore? It's been so long since I harbored any feelings for my parents. I couldn't recall if I had since it had been so long ago.

Why was I thinking of that now? It was all Madoka's fault that I was starting to think of my parents again after so long. She kept referring me to me as her brother and Chifuyu-nee as her sister that it must have messed with my brain a bit. When Madoka said that 'Mother' wanted to meet me, I must have just associated the two.

When my shirt started to get heavier from the accumulating tears, I made it to the door that would put an end to this nightmarish experience. Without having too even touch it, the door swung open. Through it, a barely conscious woman came stumbling through the door.

"Whoa there!" I exclaimed as I used my body to support my sister from planting her face into the ground.

"Ichika… You're safe…" Chifuyu-nee said weakly.

"Yeah, but it's kind of heavy to support the two of you right now," I said sheepishly and with a tired smile on my face.

"Stupid Ichika," both of the girls said with a light laugh accompanied with a light jab.

Madoka's Perspective

"I'm sorry that the mission failed Mother. We tried our best, but some things got in the way," I said fearfully as I had let Ichi-ni-san escape when dealing with the nuisances.

"It's fine. We got what we wanted anyways," the woman stated ominously.

"But we have neither the core nor little brother. We didn't even fulfill our constituent's request," I said perplexed.

"Be that as it may, he is not yet ready to join us. Ichika escaped because still does not yet realize that we are his destiny. He will come to us soon enough. As for the constituent, the circumstances have changed enough fortunately. It seems that our constituent has other plans for the target as of now."

"So then what was this whole operation for? While I do find it fun spread our name to the world, this seemed rather pointless Mother."

"But it wasn't my sweet child. We did do something world changing," Mother said with a smile on her face.

"What is that exactly?"

"We made a man pilot an I.S.! We made Ichika the first male pilot!"

Author's Notes

#1: For the most part these notes will just be here to clarify some things that may not have been so obvious while reading. Please favorite and follow if you liked this story. Also send reviews of things you liked or disliked so that I can try to improve the work. Send questions and I will probably respond to some of them in the next chapter.

#2: I'm not very good at describing fight scenes, but I do hope that this at least seemed interesting.


	6. Chapter 6

Disclaimer: I do not own I.S. and no copyright infringement is intended.

"Speaking/Reading"

Ichika's Perspective

How're you holding up there Charles?" I asked the next president.

While I was uncertain to how he reacted in the bunker over the whole situation prior to my arrival, he must have been mulling over how such a disaster could have occurred. His eyes, though reddened from what look to be stress, still looked at me with some energy. His aggravated face soon gave off a small smile over something that he had found good.

"So you made it back. How bad were the damages?" he croaked.

"Some of the hallways were damaged, and I think all but one of the intruders are dead at this point. As for the rest of your pilots that were on duty, I'm not too sure. I think they went to look for a recharge during Charlotte and my confrontation with the main enemy forces," I said absent mindedly without thinking too much about how my words could have been interpreted.

"What do you mean by confrontation? You fought an I.S. barehanded? You killed a pilot without an I.S…." Charles asked with an alarmed expression that grew more surprised as he noticed something on my right hand that had not been there prior this whole incident.

When Charles mentioned the word fight and kill, I felt something knot up in my stomach. I felt I was going to vomit just from the memory of what had just happened moments ago. My mind became clouded with the corpses that I had seen earlier. My heart tightened as I recalled that I had disarmed my opponent by literally removing her arms.

"Well the cat's out of the bag on that one, but we didn't kill anyone. One of the enemies started to kill their own teammates, which reminds me, is there a recharge station in this place? Charlotte and I might have to go back out to fight if Madoka tries to break in," I said while mentally smacking myself.

I had just piloted a machine that had shifted the world because it could only have been piloted by women before today. No matter how I looked at it, I needed to keep it a secret. Anyone with a hold in the I.S. world would have wanted the prospect of essentially doubling their military strength; most of whom would even use some dubious means to acquire the data to replicate the results, even if it meant that they no longer saw me as a human.

It was only fortunate that the one who had found out first was Charles. While he was still a business man that was about to inherit the third largest I.S. corporation, I at least figured that he wouldn't turn me into a guinea pig for some experiment since we had gotten to know each other for a day. However, I still had to brace myself for the worst since I was now using his I.S. core and he had to reestablish the company.

"Don't worry; the military should be here in a few minutes. For now we should discuss the issue concerning your… gift," the man said with an opportunistic expression on his face.

"Oy… I don't think that this is anytime to discuss such matters. We've all been through a lot today," my sister wearily said to prevent anyone from making any deals with global implications.

"But this is the only time we can discuss before the information is able to spread through the news. If we do not properly address the situation, Ichika might find himself in a troublesome situation. While I do admit I will be trying to make the situation helpful for me, I do believe that we can at least make it so that Ichika doesn't find himself strapped down to an operating table."

"At least you're honest about your intentions," I said sarcastically as I gently put down Charlotte, who was in my arms during the whole conversation, on a seat.

Ignoring my slight rudeness, Charles continued with the terms of the deal, "Let's start out with what you want. I can safely assume that you wish for your identity to remain a secret from the public and those with influence in the I.S. world."

"I can assume you want me to join the Dunois Corporation as exchange," I said warily.

"Whatever makes you think that Ichika," Charles said with a cocky smile on his lips.

His response made both Charlotte and me give an incredulous look. While unconfirmed, his words implied that he didn't want my data. Charles was passing up an opportunity of the lifetime. This might have been the only time to get me to willing to join his company and push his reputation to levels equivalent to being a Brunhilde. It wasn't just me being boastful or prideful in myself. The existence of a male pilot and the data was too valuable to pass up.

"You know very well why anyone would think that, but since you seem to know something that I don't, why don't you enlighten me as to why you don't seem to want me to join the Dunois Corporation," I said with a curious look spread on my face.

"While it would seem that having you join us would be quite beneficial for us, it really wouldn't be with our current condition. As you know, this company has just suffered major damages and all of its resources will have to be used to fix up the damages. This, in combination with the fact that we will now be researching how to push our I.S. into the next generation, will put a great strain on us. As a result, having a thirteen year old such as you join us and preventing any information leaks will prove quite difficult. I can't even help you if the government finds out you can pilot the I.S. since they will proudly advertize that the first male pilot works for the French. But don't fret too much, you're data is quite valuable still," Charles said quite eloquently and smugly.

"So here comes the terms for your silence," I said humorlessly.

"Then I'll get straight to the point. I want you to keep the core and use it. If you want to use it secretly or out in the open is up to you. All I want you to do is transfer the data to us whenever you use it so that we may analyze it."

"I'm not sure if I can accept those terms."

"And why not? You are receiving a core for your own use and I promise to keep you a secret until you wish to come out into the open. All I ask for in return is the data that you can extract from the core."

"While you only seem to see the situation as a means to make a profit, you seem to have forgotten the fact that someone knew the fact that we were coming and knew where we would be," my sister said rather angrily.

"As my sister has said, there are people on your side that have connections to the people behind this attack. If I were to hand over my data to you, I would also be taking a big risk since the data could easily fall into the organization's hands. As it stands, I think I'd rather take my chances with the government trying to dissect me than have anyone get their hands on this core or the data in it," I sighed out before tapping my newly acquired ring to open up a screen.

"What do you exactly intend to do?!" Charles exclaimed quite desperately.

"Obviously… I'm going to have to destroy Core Number Zero-Zero-One. While I do apologize that I will have to deprive you of a core and the data, but it must be done," I said as I slowly started to type out the deactivation code.

It was strange. I could easily have typed faster and ended the situation before anyone could stop me, but a part of me didn't want to do so. Was I doing things so slowly because the core held sentimental value to me as not only an important historical item, but as the core both Chifuyu-nee and I used? It was just another component in a machine. It wasn't anything more than that, but I couldn't help but feel that my actions were me extinguishing a life. This core had called out to me hadn't it?

"Don't be a fool Ichika! Destroying the core will only put yourself in more danger than you already are in," Charles said rapidly, but to no avail as I continued to type.

"Probably, but at least this core can't be used for evil purposes if it disappeared. I'm more concerned about that than having to hide from whoever attacked us today," I said sadly with my fingers starting to tremble.

"Destroying the core will only get rid of the core! It doesn't get rid of you! So long as you exist, you can still be examined to still get the data! You can only hide for so long! The only way you can protect yourself is if you fight with an I.S. as your weapon! Why destroy the core if in the end you'll probably be forced to use another one!" Charles argued with all his might.

This time he was successful though. Those words had stopped my fingers from moving. He was right in that destroying the core was useless. Because Madoka was still alive and belonged to an organization that seemed to have a lot of cores to use, I wouldn't be able to fight without an I.S. anyways. But Charles was wrong in that I couldn't hide. There was always Taba-nee's lab.

"What about those that you hold dear? Are you going to abandon them," a voice rang through my head again.

Damn it all. I really hated being in a position where anything I could do had some heavy repercussions. Why couldn't anything just be plain and simple? My hands were quivering from trying to figure out what I should do. A part of me knew that Charles was right in that destroying the core was meaningless. But I was also sure that if I remained hidden, then it wouldn't have been useless. It would cost me the chance to live outside of the lab, but at least things couldn't get worse. But what about my friends? Wouldn't others try to draw me out using them? Wasn't the reason why I used the I.S. to protect those that I cared about?

As I was thinking about what I should do, I felt a gentle hand touch my shoulder. At first I thought it was Chifuyu-nee just trying to tell me that everything was going to be okay. I found out that I was wrong though when I looked up to see a set of purple eyes and a comforting smile.

"Just do what you think is right Ichika. I'm sure whatever you decide to do will be the right one. You always have been right before," Charlotte said encouragingly.

"Don't encourage him into destroying the core," Charles said angrily at his sister.

I thought about looking at my sister for advice, but realized that it was futile to even try. After spending so much time with her, I already knew that she would have said that there really wasn't a right answer to this dilemma. Chifuyu-nee would have just said, "Just leap forwards with your gut instinct," or something like that.

"You need me," the mysterious voice rang again.

I breathed deeply as I made my mind and said slowly, "Fine Charles, I won't destroy the core."

All the tension Charles had built up immediately disappeared as soon as the screen that I had opened up disappeared. He just plopped back down with exhaustion just oozing off of his skin. It was quite the sight to see the man that I had seen so highly off earlier today just seem so out of it.

"Look here, I'm sure that I can analyze the data on my own. I may not be as skilled as others, but I'm still able to do that much. If you can't trust my company, can you at least just trust me?" he asked wearily.

"Sure… But how will you get the data without someone finding out? Someone is bound to get suspicious if you receive transmissions from a thirteen year old in Japan."

"I'm assuming you're going to join I.S. Academy. Your sister is supposed to get a job there if I recalled correctly," Charles said as he slowly regained his composure.

"But isn't that an all-girls school?" I said half-jokingly. Of course it was an all-girls school. The I.S. was a woman's tool.

"You're going to be enrolled Ichika," Chifuyu-nee said flatly.

"What?" both Charlotte and I exclaimed by how nonchalant Chifuyu-nee was about sending me to the academy.

"Objections?"

"I'm a guy."

"And you are a pilot," Chifuyu-nee responded while poking me with a finger.

"Yes… But I'm a guy. You intend to put me in a school for girls. You really want to put your little brother in an environment in which the girls will probably try to grab me as their own?"

"That shouldn't be an issue for you. You seemed to be quite close to this one if I recall accurately," she said while pointing towards the one sitting right next to me.

My face instantly became flushed as I remembered that I had been carrying her all the way into the bunker. I also distinctly recall how close our faces had come towards each other. While at the time I wasn't too bothered by it due to the circumstances, it seemed too intimate now. Every now and then I took a glance at Charlotte to see how she felt, and what I saw confirmed that I was not alone on these feelings.

Charles took notice of the situation and gave a small scowl. I didn't know why though. Well, I had a couple of ideas as to why he was upset, but I wasn't too sure which was the real answer.

"Well Charlotte is going to enroll in I.S. academy as well. It shouldn't be an issue since she will be of age soon, and people won't try to pry into the messages if it is between Charlotte and me. Your sister and I can work out the details of the admission and arrangements later."

"This has got to be the dumbest plan I have ever heard of," I mumbled quietly with a beet red face.

"But it isn't the dumbest thing you have done now. I still need to punish you for running off today," Chifuyu-nee scolded.

* * *

"I'm so tired," I complained loudly as we passed through the front door of our house.

"So am I. Give me a massage," my sister retorted happily as she dropped off our travel bags on the ground to go lie on the couch.

"But I'm tired Chifuyu-nee. Can't you let me off the hook today? I just want to go to sleep today."

"No can do. This is your punishment for doing something as stupid as challenge an I.S. barehanded," she said as she turned on the T.V. to the news.

At least I was being let off lightly for that. Normally Chifuyu-nee's punishments were much more tiring. The last time I had pissed her off, she forced me sit in a seiza position for three days straight. I had to even take time off of school just to finish the punishment and some more time just to recover from the strain. The funny thing was that she made me do it so that I wouldn't miss school in the first place.

"Okay Chifuyu-nee."

I started to get to work as I listened to the news.

"The Dunois Corporation was attacked by terrorists earlier today. While most of the information surrounding the incident has been put under wraps, we have been told that the terrorist were unable to acquire what they were looking for. Four of the five intruders have also been confirmed to have perished during the attack, but the successful defense had come at the price of two French test pilots.

Bzzzz…

Many officials have arrived on the scene to examine the damages. All six cores have been retrieved from the deceased, and the four cores that had been used by the intruders are under examination. Based on current findings, officials speculate that the attack was launched by the terrorist organization known as Phantom Task. Currently, officials have begun interrogating world leaders whose cores had been recovered from the attack.

Bzzzz…

We have also been able to confirm that the president of the company has passed away as a result of the attack. His twenty six year old son, Charles Dunois, has taken the position of the new president. When asked what he was planning to do as the new president, he stated that his primary focus as of now was to first restore Dunois Corporation's facilities and activities. When asked about his father, Mr. Dunois simply stated that there was a time and place for mourning.

Bzzzz…

Mr. Dunois has also revealed that the Dunois Corporation will start developing prototypes for the third generation market as soon as everything has calmed down. Based on his initiation to the I.S. market, many are concerned about how the death of his father will affect him. While many of his competitors state that he is too inexperienced to run such a large business, many French officials express high hopes in the coming generation.

Bzzzz…

On to other I.S. related news. The Chinese team developing the third generation I.S. models has received a lot of pressure for the unsuccessful specs of their prototype. Due to the recent attack on the Dunois Corporation and the destroyed prototype, the abilities and business practices of the developers have come under question by the Chinese Government. As a result, a new team has been commissioned to develop the next generation model," several channels and announcers stated professionally.

The news, though terrible, was comforting in that Charles had kept quiet as promised. Not a single news channel so much as mentioned the existence of a male pilot. Chifuyu-nee even seemed relieved as the muscles that I had been kneading with my knuckles quickly relaxed with each channel we browsed through.

"Are you feeling better now Chifuyu-nee?"

"Much better, but we should discuss really discuss your future at I.S. academy," she said with a bored expression.

Great, I was getting a lecture on the birds and the bees from my sister. I honestly didn't know how awkward this conversation could get and I really didn't want to find out. While I did understand that Chifuyu-nee was just concerned about the fact that I was a healthy boy going to an estrogen pit, I figured that this lecture was kind of meaningless since she was tossing me into the pit in the first place.

"Chastity belt of condom, which do you prefer," my sister said with a straight face.

My mouth just dropped in confusion. At least this lecture wasn't going to be boring, but I must say that this was terribly awkward. I never expected to hear those words come out the mouths of my big sister. I doubted any brother with common sense would be able to just take the joke without any reaction.

"Raw?" I said hesitantly trying to play off the joke, which deservedly earned me a heavy chop on the top of my head.

"Okay seriously… I'm not going to give you a lecture about what you can and can't do. You should know that by now. But I am going to warn you that you may actually want to bring a chastity belt," Chifuyu-nee said while regaining her composure from how stupid I was earlier.

"Really? I know that the girls there are all going to have some training, but do you think that they are really going to violate me?"

"Not one on one for most, but you are going to be there twenty four seven. Do you really think that you can fend off the entire academy by yourself for three whole years?"

Chifuyu-nee did have a point that I had considered earlier, but wasn't thinking to deeply. I.S. Academy was a boarding school, which pretty much meant that the only people these girls would have been around were girls. Even if the girls were just curious, most of them would pretty much be hunting me down as some interesting show or item to keep. I didn't even want to think what value they might put on me just because I was the only guy around.

"I'll be fine… I think. If you were willing to enroll me, I don't think anything too serious can happen. Besides, I don't want to start some crazy international crisis from being with a girl. I'm pretty sure that the girls would feel the same way in that regard," I half-heartedly said.

Even if I was wrong in my thinking, Chifuyu-nee would surely save me. Right? She wasn't going to let some girl just take her little brother by force. However, I hoped that it would never have to come down to a situation that needed Chifuyu-nee to burst into a room when I was with a woman.

"Is that so? Then how do you feel about Charlotte?" Chifuyu-nee said with a mischievous smile on her face.

"Wha…?! What does this conversation have to do with Charlotte?!" I nervously exclaimed.

"Just asking, Ichika. Is there any reason to be so nervous, little brother?" my big sister teased while patting my head.

I didn't even respond. I just pouted over how my sister seemed to like to tease me so much. My face was red and I just turned my body away. I was just too embarrassed over the flow of the conversation.

"I'm glad you're feeling a lot better now," Chifuyu-nee said while she gave me a hug from behind.

"What do you mean," I said sleepily.

"Today was your first fight. You also saw many things that you probably didn't want to see and probably did things you didn't want to do."

"Yeah…" I yawned.

"Big sis is going to make sure that everything will be okay, so you don't have to fret over the little details. Whenever you are sad or scared, I'm here for you. If you do something you regret, I'll make you feel better. I just want you to be safe and happy," Chifuyu-nee cooed softly.

"Okay…"

* * *

Chifuyu's Perspective

"Tabane, did you know that Ichika would be able to pilot the I.S.?"

"Of course I did Chi-chan! There isn't anything that this little bunny doesn't know!" the woman said cheerfully before smashed my fist in between those mechanical bunny ears adorning her head.

"I only asked you to do one thing. Only one thing. Now tell me, what did I ask you to do?" I said with an annoyed tone.

"Keep Ik-kun safe…" the rabbit said with a pained expression from having a few of her brain cells smashed.

"And you sent him on a job that I'm pretty sure you knew was dangerous. You even gave him a malfunctioning core."

"But it wasn't dangerous Chi-chan. You know as well as I do that Phantom Task wants him alive and safe. I was just trying to make sure Ik-kun would be able to defend himself from them_" the woman tried to say before I planted another fist in her head.

"With a malfunctioning I.S. core?"

"Chi-chan is so mean," the rabbit girl said while rubbing where I had hit her and continued saying, "You didn't have to get that angry. I didn't expect the core to have become corrupted just because Ichika used it."

I could only sigh at this point. I was just tired and a bit stressed out after today. Tabane, though putting Ichika in danger, was still looking out for him. I knew that very well that Ichika needed something to protect himself from Phantom Task. Tabane's plan even worked since it helped save Ichika when I was unable to help him myself. The very thought that I had let Ichika fall into harm's way twice made me bite my lip in frustration. Even if I was the Brunhilde, was I really that useless?

"Can you fix the core?" I asked more kindly.

"It might take a while. I'm not sure if I can fix it in time for Ichika's first few weeks at the Academy," she mumbled as she began to fiddle with the ring Ichika had been wearing.

"Just do what you can, Tabane. I'm counting on you."

"Of course I will if Chi-chan asks me to. Besides I want to make sure little Ik-kun will be okay too," Tabane said wistfully.

"Thanks… And sorry for hitting you twice…" I mumbled in slight embarrassment over how I had lost my cool.

"I love you too Chi-chan!" the rabbit said while launching herself at me.

"Don't get too excited," I responded while instinctively grabbing her face to keep away from the rabbit's crushing bear hug.

Author's Notes

#1: For the most part these notes will just be here to clarify some things that may not have been so obvious while reading. Please favorite and follow if you liked this story. Also send reviews of things you liked or disliked so that I can try to improve the work. Send questions and I will probably respond to some of them in the next chapter.


	7. Chapter 7 Version 2

Disclaimer: I do not own I.S. and no copyright infringement is intended.

"Speaking/Reading"

I redid this chapter because I tried too hard to follow canon Cecilia and didn't like how she turned out. She felt too out of place when I imagine how I'm trying to progress the story. The only thing that changed from the first version should be the parts with her in it.

Ichika's Perspective

The past couple of weeks have been way too troublesome for my and possibly anyone else's taste. While I did understand that I was the only male pilot, I still had to question why we had to reveal the information so damn early. It's been a pain trying to avoid all of the news reporters that come to see if they could get an interview. It didn't help that I had to prep for my departure, clean the house, attempt to design an all-purpose model, train in hand to hand combat, and train using an Infinite Stratos. Too much had happened just trying to get into school.

The funny thing was that I was more worried about how the students would react to seeing a boy on campus more so than I was worried about the reporters. I could just imagine just being hounded at every corner. It wouldn't have been as bad if someone other than my teacher was actually here as well, but I couldn't recall any of my friends bragging about becoming a pilot. Then again, I didn't exactly make too many friends that weren't guys since a lot of women in Japan grew arrogant with the introduction of the Infinite Stratos. Why though was beyond me since I've been to a couple places outside of Japan where such issues weren't prevalent.

Where was Charlotte when I really needed her? I understood that she was still busy in helping the Dunois Corporation get back on its feet, but having a friend right now would make me feel so much better about the situation. The only other person who might possibly be at this Academy would be Houki, but I had my doubts since I recalled that she hated the I.S. with a passion. Maybe I would get lucky and have her in my class, but knowing my luck, I didn't invest too much hope in that.

At least Chifuyu-nee was going to be my teacher. Actually, I wasn't too sure if that were a blessing or not. I had been spending the last two years training with her from the ground up, and I could confidently state that I went to and came back from hell at least a dozen times a day. At the rate I had to improve to keep up with Chifuyu-nee, I had the confidence that I wasn't going to make a fool of myself.

As I was mulling over my fate for the next three years, I reached my classroom. I had left home early so as to avoid starting a commotion in the hallway because I was at least aware that it would be a problem for the school if a majority of the students were late to class on the first day for trying to peak at the first male pilot. To my surprise, I saw a blue-haired girl standing in front of the doorway.

"Uhm… Good morning…" I said hesitantly with a bit of anticipation and worry of how the girl would react seeing a guy on campus.

I was correct to be wary for in an instant I found a large spear materialize, which was quickly thrusted at my Adam's apple. Whether it was because of Chifuyu-nee's training or because the girl was holding back, I managed to grab the tip of the spear and direct it away. Not wanting any more surprise attacks, I tugged on the spear to close the distance between the two of us. The sudden counter caused the girl to stumble for an instant, which I used to close the distance in even further and attempt to grab her by the vest. While I had successfully grabbed and thrown her across the hall, she was able to dematerialize and subsequently materialize her spear as a means to form a stable pole to swing around. This had allowed her to turn her short flight into a means to try to kick me in the face. The tactic had taken me by surprise, but I had managed to avoid it by bending backwards to avoid the attack and doing several backflips to gain more distance.

"Quite the enthusiastic way to invite the new freshmen," I said with a wry smile on my face as soon as I came to a stop.

"Oh! I'm sorry about that Ichika. I thought you might have been one of the girls out to claim my title," the girl said sheepishly while sticking out her tongue.

"No problem… What should I call you?" I said warily since I had just had a spear nearly impale me.

"Call me Tatenashi or Senpai or a combination of the two. I'm the current student council president. I'll be looking forward to attending this school with you."

"Likewise Senpai… Wait did you say the student council president? As in the strongest student on campus?" I said as I finally snapped out of my battle stance.

"So you do know the rules here. Well if you ever feel like testing your metal against a real opponent, you can just knock on the student council's door. I'll be more than happy to take you on then. For now, I best be off so you don't have to deal with any of the other students out to get me," the president said before dashing off into the distance.

What a strange girl. Who else, other than the staff and the two of us, would be on campus so early? The sound of a distant explosion forced me to retract my statement and thank Tatenashi from the bottom of my heart for not getting me involved in an I.S. fight without my Byakushiki.

I entered the room and sat at my designated seat, which was marked with my name on it. The morning was peaceful other than the occasional yelling and explosions that occurred far off. It was also boring since nothing else was happening.

"Might as well try to figure out what I should do for Taba-nee's homework," I mumbled softly.

The work was honestly difficult. I had only ever worked on individual parts rather than the complete frame and attachments. It was much easier to just design a part since my goal was to make the weapon have a specific purpose. An entire I.S., and one that was specifically suppose to handle all situations, was a whole different story due to the many current limitations. I had to somehow balance the system's energy usage, data storage, specs, controls, and several more. Every time I had thought I managed to design something worthwhile, it would always turn out flawed since the idea always made some important aspect of the machine suffer.

My fingers were furiously tapping at my holographic screen as I kept altering certain aspects in hopes of finding a balanced setting. It was honestly difficult and I was really getting nowhere fast. If there were more of me or a lot of researchers helping, this wouldn't have been so difficult. How Taba-nee was able to do this by herself was beyond me. It even seemed a bit unfair that she seemed to be holding me at her own standards. But it was an interesting challenge and I didn't want to fall short of Taba-nee's expectations.

"Uhm… Mr. Orimura?"

I was completely surprised when I heard my name called out. What surprised me more was seeing the vice homeroom teacher leaning in front of me with a curious look on her face. The sudden appearance caused me to give a startled jump while loudly saying, "Yes!"

My ears were soon greeted with the sound of several snickers. The surrounding noise made me look around the room and discover that the room was suddenly full of girls. It appears that while I had become so focused over my work, I had completely missed the fact that class had started. This was a bit embarrassing to have missed so much.

"I'm sorry if I startled you. But we are currently doing introductions now. Right now it's your turn and when you didn't respond, I got worried that you didn't realize that class had started," my teacher said very shyly and rapidly.

"I'm sorry about that Sensei. So I just have to do my introduction?" I said in an attempt to sweep the moment under the rug.

"Yes," the green-haired woman said cheerfully.

"Well, I'm Ichika Orimura and… I honestly can't think of a good way to introduce myse_" I tried to say jokingly before a very hard book smacked the top of my head.

"Mr. Orimura, that's no way to make an introduction," a strict voice said very clearly.

"Owww… That really hurt Chifu_" I attempted to rebut before I felt my face collide with the desk. I had forgotten how strict Chifuyu-nee was during training. Well I hadn't forgotten, I had just simply assumed that her being my teacher wasn't the same thing. Clearly I was wrong.

"It's Ms. Orimura when class is in session."

"Yes Ms. Orimura," I said without even trying to make a joke at this point. I wasn't even sure if I was conscious enough to think of a joke at this point. My head was just hurting too much from the consecutive attacks.

The rest of the class were murmuring something about Chifuyu-nee being my sister and giving a scream when they realized that she was indeed going to be our homeroom teacher. The only thing to note was that the curious stares during my introductions changed to hungry stares. Nothing else registered in my mind too much though. I couldn't even recall what the first lecture was about as I found myself more or less stuck to the surface of my desk. The only reason why I think I didn't feel anything whack me after the first two was probably because I wasn't conscious enough for the punishment or because I answered a question in class despite my disposition. I wasn't too sure though since my memory was too fuzzy.

I only managed to come back to the world of the living when the bell rang to signal the break. The reason for that was that I didn't really have much of a choice but to do so for it only took almost the entire class only a few seconds to surround my desk. They were also shouting and asking a barrage of questions that it was impossible to actually respond to any of them. If I had to paint my situation in words, it was as if I was in the middle of a hurricane just waiting for the wind to pass.

A hand soon grabbed my own and yanked me out of my desk. The sudden action was quick and caught me by surprise, which led to me stumbling through the crowd of girls. A lot of the girls voiced disapproval at the girl leading me for being so forward and aggressive. I probably would have voiced similar concerns if it wasn't saving me from this mosh pit. It did make me worry a bit about who was dragging me around though.

It wasn't long before we found ourselves on the rooftop alone. It was also the first time I was able to calm down enough to finally look at who had been leading me along. The girl had long black hair that was tied into a ponytail. This ponytail was held up by a familiar green ribbon.

"Houki? Is that really you?" I asked with high expectations.

"It's nice to see you again Ichika. How have you been?" my childhood friend said with a relief.

"A bit tired from this morning, but how have you been? I've heard that you won the world kendo tournament."

After listening to my words, her face became red and formed a frown. Was she mad? Did she take my words as some sort of insult? I couldn't tell despite the fact that we were childhood friends. It was sad, but it was sometimes hard to tell when Houki was just mad or embarrassed because she always wore that frown. She said that she was born with it, but I couldn't help but be a bit conscious about it.

"Why do you know that?" she asked rather fiercely.

"Why wouldn't I? You're my childhood friend after all," I answered honestly in hopes that it would help cheer Houki up if she were actually angry.

Unfortunately, it seemed to have the opposite effect since she was now glaring at me intently. I guess she wanted a better reason other than simply being friends, but I couldn't think of anything else. Maybe she had wanted to see me at the competition that she had worked so hard for. That was always a distinct possibly since we had used to train together. There was also the possibly that she wanted to spar with me after so long, but was trying to tell me through her eyes rather than in words.

Houki always had this strange interest in the way of the samurai. It was probably due to her lifestyle in the dojo since it made it so that her life revolved around the way of the sword. After all these years, it seemed that that was still the case. She had this strange idea that, as fellow practitioners of the same style, we should be able to communicate without words.

"Uhm… Houki? Would you mind telling me why you seem so upset? I can't fix anything if you don't tell me what's wrong," I said sheepishly to diffuse the tension.

"Why haven't you been participating in kendo tournaments?" she asked earnestly.

At least her frustration was more obvious to me now. She wasn't angry so much as she was lonely. We had been separated from each other every since the I.S. made its dramatic introduction to the world. It was for the best since she was Taba-nee's sister, but it was so sudden that we weren't able to even say goodbye to each other.

"I'm sorry about that. I've been kind of busy for all these years and a lot has happened. As a result, I couldn't really practice kendo or enter tournaments. I'm sorry I couldn't see you there," I said with a considerably sad expression on my face.

The bell rang before Houki could continue the conversation.

"Come on. We're going to be late to class if we don't hurry, and I don't need any more head traumas than what I have already received for today," I said jokingly while starting to walk to class.

* * *

Ms. Yamada was soon lecturing about legislation concerning the I.S. and the effective restriction put on the use and operations. While only having started her career as a teacher, she spoke very eloquently and at a pace that should have been easy to keep up with. As someone who had to study all of these topics since the ripe old age of ten, I was very impressed at how well she was able to condense all the information in understandable bits and pieces.

I honestly was surprised at how professional Ms. Yamada seemed. Earlier, I had the impression that she was too shy and inattentive to be teaching. She was even surprised that I hadn't been paying attention in class and apologized to me instead of scolding me. It was nice to have such a nice teacher, and it was a relief to know that she was quite competent. She was at least a much more understandable teacher than Taba-nee was. The memories of my study time with Taba-nee made me shudder.

The bell rang for the passing period after a while. Both teachers left to collect teaching materials, which left me in the room full of girls for a second time. This time though, the flood didn't occur. I had to really thank Houki for that since she spent the entire time giving my general area an intense stare in what I could only assume was her attempt at telepathy. Her little experiment scared off most of the other girls. This made my break much easier as I had some breathing room and time to answer questions from the few courageous girls that decided to talk to me with Houki glaring at them.

"Ah, can I have a moment?"

"Sure," I said earnestly since I wasn't being swarmed.

Looking up at the person who was trying to get my attention, I saw a girl with very long and curled up blond hair. She was carrying herself with a stance that carried a lot of confidence and nobility. One of her ears was also adorned with a blue earring that was quite obviously her I.S. dormant form. I also noticed that her blue eyes were checking me from top to bottom.

"Your name is Ichika is it not?" she asked haughtily.

"Yes, and you are?"

"Pardon my rudeness, my name is Cecilia Alcott, and I'm a candidate representative for England. I noticed that you didn't seem to be following today's lecture. I can only imagine that you must be awfully lost during lecture since you just found out that you could pilot an I.S. despite being a man. If you have any questions regarding the I.S., please feel free to consult me. I will do my best to explain the details to you for I am the top scorer in this year's freshmen."

I honestly had no clue how to take her introduction. While on one hand she seemed nice in trying to help out someone who very likely had no experience in anything I.S. related, she came off as very boastful and showy. The fact that she had to announce her achievements made me question her real intentions. While I could have just been overly conscious of such details, it was probably best to at least keep my eyes open whenever I had to deal with anyone in this school.

I should probably at least give her the benefit of the doubt. Even though I was thinking that she did seem too full of pride, I could have said the same thing about Charles back when we first met. At the time, I didn't even suspect him of ulterior motives despite the fact that he had a lot to gain from just attracting the little brother of the Brunhilde, and he turned out to be a real stand up guy when I got to know him that day. It wasn't like my situation was really different then than how it was now. The only real difference was that Cecilia was a girl. The very comparison made me question if my doubt just stemmed from the fact that I wasn't normally used to dealing with prideful girls, who had become more common with the introduction of Taba-nee's machine.

"Thank you for the concern, but I'm actually well versed in all things related to the I.S.," I said in English so as not to seem as though I was just brushing her off.

"Oh, so you can speak in English. That makes it easier for me. In any case, you don't have to be so reserved. I know how prideful you men can get when a woman tries to offer you help. There is no shame in asking help from a woman, especially since you're currently in a woman's territory," Cecilia said while flipping her hair.

"My apologies, Ms. Alcott. I'm sorry if the fact that a man knowing anything I.S. related has somehow offended you. I'll do my best to fit your skewed image of what a man should be like," I said with as much sarcasm as I could.

I probably should have just stopped while I was ahead. Though Cecilia had turned the conversation in a sour direction, even I had to admit I was starting seem like a real ass at this point. This was made even clearer to me when I could actually see one of Cecilia's veins pop on her forehead.

Fortunately for the both of us, this little confrontation ended at the sound of the bell. My aggressor just trotted back to her desk and left me to contemplate how my actions would come back to bite me in the ass later. I knew it was going to happen, the question was whether it would be worse for it to happen or go and apologize to Cecilia for being such an ass. Both options seemed pretty bad in their own way.

* * *

Cecilia's Perspective

"Before we continue the lecture, we need to decide on who will be the class representative for this class. Keep in mind that the class representative will be the one participating in the inter-class tournaments, student council meetings, and committee meetings. When picking who you want as the representative, please make sure to consider how well the person can pilot. You may volunteer or volunteer someone in the class," Ms. Orimura said in a monotone voice.

"I nominate Ichika," a classmate exclaimed instantaneously.

Say what now?

"That's a great idea. We should have Ichika represent us."

"He is the only boy in the school after all."

These girls were completely falling for the boy simply because he was unique. While I did not oppose the idea of seeing Ichika's abilities, I did care that my classmates were willing to cast aside their pride by allowing that sharped tongue mongrel to represent us. He had his wits, but he was far too arrogant and couldn't possibly be that good of a pilot given the short time he has been piloting. All in all, Ichika would only bring shame to us should he become the class's representative.

"Are there any other candidates? If no one else's name is put forth, Mr. Orimura will be the class representative by default," the teacher called out loudly in order to make sure anyone who did want the job could hear that this was their last chance.

"Hold on a minute! I can't accept this outcome," I called out.

Everyone's attention soon turned to me before I calmly, and eloquently, said, "This kind of election outcome is utterly unacceptable. On what basis is everyone voting for this man to be the class representative? All I have heard so far is that he is a man when the real deciding factor should be how well he can pilot. The position should be reserved for the best since the person will be representing how well all of us can pilot. If the boy turns out to be a complete amateur, then he will only bring shame to us all."

"Do you have any objections to what Ms. Alcott has said?" Ms. Orimura asked her little brother with a bored expression despite my compelling speech.

"Not in particular. Ms. Alcott does make some good points," the boy responded to the Brunhilde before addressing me, "Ms. Alcott, correct me if I'm wrong, but you make it seem as though you are the only suitable for the position."

"In matters concerning proven ability, I must say so. As I have told you before, I am a candidate to represent England and out of this year's freshmen, I am the only one to have defeated an instructor during the entrance examination," I stated confidently and aggressively.

"I will admit that it is quite the accomplishment, and I congratulate you on your successes. As you said, you have a superior track record, but that alone doesn't necessarily make you the one most suited for the role of class representative. But by all means, take the position if you think you are up to the challenge. I'm not stopping you."

"Hoh… You make it sound as if you are more qualified than I am for the position, but why do you wish to hand the position over to me."

My interest was piqued at this point. While I was quite doubtful that the boy was capable of any amazing feat, he was carrying himself with great confidence. His demeanor hinted that he had great skill, but I couldn't be so certain until I saw it firsthand. But unlike me, he did not seem so open about what he could do.

"In my opinion, I don't believe that my skill is anything worth mentioning at the moment. I was just giving you fair warning that there might be others more skilled than you are. In any case, I'm not too interested in the role of class representative because I'm quite sure that my skills won't be sufficient in bringing too much glory for this class."

"That's quite a way to phrase that you are weak. I was expecting more than what you have shown me," I said with a sense that all my efforts to attain the position were rather wasted on a man with a strange mix of confidence and lack of.

"I never once said or insinuated that I was weak. I just don't think that they are up to par with my current target at the moment. As a result, my plans will most likely end in defeat and bring shame to this class."

"If your goal is truly that great, no one will hold it against you. So please, would you enlighten me and the rest of the class what exactly you are planning that prevents you from taking on the role as the class representative?"

"Yo. Ichika, I came over to ask if you're the class representative of the class," a very chipper voice rang from the doorway.

The source of the voice was an unfamiliar blue-haired and red-eyed student. She didn't seem to even be a freshman given how unreserved she was and how she seemed to radiate a certain untouchable aura that made me shiver. Other than that, nothing seemed to out of the ordinary other than the fact that she had specifically called out to the boy as if they were acquaintances.

"I'm not planning to assume the responsibility… Aren't you supposed to be in class Tatenashi?" Ichika asked with a bit of confusion as to why she was here.

"Well… While being the student council president does have its perks, I get attacked a lot by others… And let's just say that the teacher didn't want to deal with so much so early in the morning."

The girl was just sticking her tongue out with her eyes closed to appear cute, but I could just imagine how wrecked the room probably was. I honestly felt bad for the poor teacher who was stuck handling this student to have forced her to leave class early.

Did she say that she was the student council president? Also, Ichika was on a first name basis with the strongest student already? I also could not forget one more tiny detail. The president came specifically to meet Ichika and possibly convince him to be the representative?

"Ahh… But I really wanted to see you at the student council meetings. So who's the class representative of this class?" the girl continued while scanning the room.

"With the way things were going, me. As such, could you clearly state who you are and would you please explain to me what exactly you need from this class?" I responded to get a better look on the situation.

"I'm the student council president, and I was here to see if Ichika here was going to be the class representative or not. But it seems that I should have tried to convince him to take the position earlier. Such a shame too. I was so hoping to be able to spend some quality time with my underclassman," Tatenashi said with a sigh and somewhat disappointed look on her face.

"It's not actually official. We haven't started the voting process since we have been listening to these two squabble over trying to give Ms. Alcott the position," the teacher said with a rather large sigh while rubbing her temples.

"So it's not official! Then can you please step down? It'd be troublesome for me if Ichika wasn't the class representative," Tatenashi let out with a big smile.

This woman was somewhat infuriating as to how she seemed to not have a care in the world. Did she not understand that being the class representative was essentially being the symbol of the class? As students and as our country's symbol of power, we could not allow a weakling to represent us. Was she just so flippant to not care about pride, or was she just at a level that made such matters seem insignificant?

At least she was giving me an opportunity to figure out what I had been dying to know as my conversation with Ichika had progressed.

"But that will be troublesome if both candidates were to step down. As Mr. Orimura has stated, he does not wish to be the class representative. He claims that he has goals that are preventing him from even fighting for the position. In fact, Mr. Orimura was just about to tell us what exactly it is he wishes to do."

This drew everyone's attention to the boy. Now what exactly is it that you want?

"In order to not bring shame to the Brunhilde, I plan to become the world's best pilot. My goal is to become the next champion at the Mondo Grosso. I will become the first male pilot to become the champion, and I will do so this year. In order to do so, I must push my levels far beyond what I'm currently capable of by challenging only the strongest opponents. Even if defeat seems to be the ultimate outcome, I will not back down from the challenge. And because of this, I challenge the student council president."

What the fuck? Those were the only three words that entered my mind. And as unladylike as it was, they aptly fit the situation given the absurdity of Ichika's goals. It wouldn't have been too hard to imagine that almost everyone else in the room had the same sentiments as me given how stunned everyone was.

The only two who didn't share the same response were the two addressed in Ichika's little speech. Our teacher was just giving a light blush and mumbling, and she had every reason to do so given how much embarrassing respect her brother had for her. The president, while surprised, was just doubled over holding her stomach with a wide smile on her face.

It wasn't long before the entire class went into an uproar of laughter and cheers. I wasn't able to register too much given the intensity of the response, but most of the things I could hear were about how Ichika was definitely born in the wrong era. That boy was trying to be a man when being a man was no longer an honor.

He was an arrogant fool. The time of man ended years ago. Ichika was just getting too full of himself just because he was able to pilot an I.S.. Yet despite his foolish nature, I felt myself somehow drawn to his insanity. It was, for a lack of a better word, refreshing. He wasn't like the spineless or manipulative men of this era. He was a fool, but interesting enough to want to see where he could and would go.

"You sure know how to start off the year with a bang. Very well, I accept your challenge. You and me are going to have a lot of fun after class," the president said before skipping off into the hallway.

Author's Notes

#1: For the most part these notes will just be here to clarify some things that may not have been so obvious while reading. Please favorite and follow if you liked this story. Also send reviews of things you liked or disliked so that I can try to improve the work. Send questions and I will probably respond to some of them in the next chapter.


	8. Chapter 8

Disclaimer: I do not own I.S. and no copyright infringement is intended.

"Speaking/Reading"

Cecilia's Perspective

"You know you're absolutely insane trying fight the school's strongest student on the first day. You do know that right?" I asked Ichika and emphasized certain details to make sure that he understood what I was getting at.

"And saying I would win in this year's Mondo Grosso wasn't? Besides, it's not the dumbest thing I've done in my life," he said rather nonchalantly.

"Oh? And pray tell, what exactly have you done that could be classified as dumber than what you are trying to attempt now," I asked skeptically.

"It's a tie between trying to outrun an I.S. and fighting four barehanded…" he said as his voice trailed off.

"… That's not even funny."

"That's because I wasn't joking."

This was the first male pilot. To the entire world, he was some symbol of changing times. To me, he was like a hammer bashing away at my common sense. I couldn't even tell if the guy was a genius or just insane because of how different his actions and words were. The only thing I could say for certain was that Ichika was definitely just a bag full of surprises.

"Anyways… Why are you even watching me prepare for the match?" he asked hesitantly to get rid of the awkward silence that he had started.

"Because Ms. Orimura wanted me to watch a 'real' pilot at work," I sighed over the implied disrespect I was receiving from our teacher.

Why exactly did I have to miss our last class of the day to simply watch Ichika fool around, and why exactly had I been looking forward to the idea? I will admit that it was an interesting idea to watch what he would do, but he clearly wasn't going to be able to do any real preparation given how he seemed to just jump into the fray without giving too much thought. To him, preparation probably only meant choosing what 'toys' to bring into the fight. It wasn't like it was going to matter though. Ichika was going into a match he was going to lose for certain.

I looked up to see the boy's back busily move about as he tried to pick a frame for such a hopeless match. It wasn't like his choice was going to make much of a difference because the president was probably going to use a third-generation model. Very few models in the second generation were able to stand up to those in the third-generation, and those that could do so usually had to disable some useful functions such as the ability to use beam weapons.

"Going to choose the Raphael Revive," I asked with an audible yawn over how tired I was just from having to deal with all of Ichika's stupidity.

"It does have high specs and the ability to store more tools," he said contently before opening a large screen concerning the core's safety functions.

"Why are you checking the safety? Are you that worried about the president accidently hurting your precious body?" I asked to pass a joke.

I wasn't too concerned of the boy getting hurt. Ichika seemed like he knew enough about the I.S. to not injure himself too gravely. There was also the fact that the president wasn't an amateur herself. It was very unlikely that she would have made such a dangerous mistake that could potentially kill him.

"Nope, I'm actually going to remove most of the unnecessary functions such as the PIC's ability to reduce the amount of force the pilot experiences when accelerating."

"Okay… Very funny," I said with an unamused expression.

It wasn't until I started to see several numbers change on the screen did I realize that he wasn't just being sarcastic to mess with me. He was absolutely serious in removing the only things preventing him from dying in the machine.

"Are you daft?! Don't mess with those things! They're there so that you don't get hurt!" I yelled.

"I know, but I need to be able to move at speeds greater than Tatenashi can. Even if she is the strongest student here, she is only able to go as fast as what her machine can go. Plus, I know what I'm doing and I know my limitations," he said rather calmly.

"So says the guy who challenged someone completely out of his league. Also, why would you possibly know that you don't need something as important as the safety features? Even better, why would you even try something so stupid?" I sighed while rubbing my temples.

"I had no choice in the matter," Ichika said rather stoically.

What exactly did he mean by that? The safety features were the functions that the suit prioritized above all else. Also, why exactly did he have no choice in the matter? It wasn't as though he had to fight his way in an actual war or battle. It would have surely shown up on the news as well if the first male pilot had not only made his presence known, but had been able to win a real fight.

Fortunately for my curiosity, Ichika continued and said, "Back when I first piloted the I.S., almost every file was corrupted to the point that all I could do was swing a sword and dash forward. Other than that, I had nothing else. I couldn't fly. I was missing some of the PIC's functions. The power supply was failing. I didn't even have the Absolute Defense shield to protect me."

This was quite an interesting story. While I had considered that Ichika had simply jumped into an I.S. suit in a lab for fun, I had never really known why Ichika even piloted a suit in the first place. We all had speculations. Most would agree with my version of the story since Ichika was the brother of the Brunhilde. Why wouldn't he have an interest or a spare suit to try on? But based on the boy's story, it seemed that so much more had gone on.

"Can you riddle me this? Why exactly did you even join the fight in the first place? It would seem rather foolish for a man to jump into an I.S. fight in the first place."

"I had to protect someone. If I had run away with my tail between my legs, I would have been sacrificing another," the boy said rather slowly before closing the safety screen.

"Was it your girlfriend?" I asked with a little too much enthusiasm considering it was just future gossip material.

My question was responded by a small bit of babbling, which was quite entertaining. The boy had turned bright red as he began refuting my statement out of sheer embarrassment. It was honestly quite cute to see this side of the snarky and crazy classmate that I had become accustomed to seeing and talking to in this one day. I never would have imagined that the seemingly calm Ichika could get so flustered. It was definitely I would want to hold on for later fun.

After babbling for a couple of moments, Ichika finally calmed down and managed to say, "I had only met her for one day. Ever since the incident, I haven't been able to talk to her too often. She's been busy helping her brother sort out some business."

"It's okay Ichika. It's perfectly normal for a boy at your age to take an interest in the opposite sex at this age," I teased with a sly grin on my face.

Even though I teased him, my mind was wrapped around some of the things he had said. From everything I had heard, I could gather that the boy had to have been involved in a major incident when he first became a pilot. I could also gather that it was not just big, but on a grand scale since I did recall the fact that he said he had to escape an I.S. and fight four barehanded. The simple number of suits would have at least been on the news in some form, but I could not recall any major attacks occurring recently.

As I racked my mind, I could only think of the attack on the Dunois Corporation a couple of years back. It was a devastating terrorist attack that had done significant damage to the company and the world's economy. If I recalled correctly, there were four to five pilots that had attacked the company, which would match with the amount of suits he had to fight if Ichika was telling the truth. There was also the fact that Charles Dunois inherited the company, which could have been the brother in his story but I did not recall the Dunois family having a daughter.

Regardless of what I thought of him or his stories, one thing was made clear to me. Ichika wasn't weak even if he had just entered the I.S. world. The fact that he was still standing in front of me told me that Ichika had won his first fight, and if everything he said was accurate concerning his suit's conditions, he won with a massive difference in suit spec and experience. I was still skeptical about some of his statements, but I at least knew that his first experience fighting was in a faulty machine given how reckless his current customizations were.

"Well, I hope you enjoyed the show. But I must bid you adieu. It seems like my opponent has just entered the ring," the boy said before quickly running off the launch pad.

"Silly boy, the show has only just begun," I whispered as I walked to the monitor to observe his fight from within the building.

* * *

Ichika's Perspective

"Ichika! It's not very gentlemanly to keep a girl waiting for an important date," my opponent said with a flirty tone.

"Sorry about that. I was just so excited that I had trouble deciding what I would wear," I played along to help release some of the tension that I had built up.

It wasn't a lie that I was extremely excited for the current circumstances. But all of my excitement stemmed from nervousness over how I would fare compared to the student council president. No one would have held it against me if I lost, and I had doubts anyone would have expected anything from me. In fact, the other students probably thought that I probably wouldn't be able to land a single hit. I couldn't blame them, but I would loathe myself if such an outcome occurred. It would not only have been a horrible outcome in of itself, but it would be even worse considering my goals.

It would be unacceptable for me if I couldn't at least put up a decent fight for the audience.

"Ahhhh… That's sweet of you to think so much of me. I'm sorry I didn't put as much effort for this little meet up as you did. How about, as a reward, I give you a handicap," she said with a little giggle over how I willing went with her flow.

"As reasonable as that sounds, I'll have to decline that offer. I'm here to see how well I would fare against the strongest pilots after all," I said while deploying my armor.

"Just a standard Raphael Revive? I feel kind of cheated Ichika. I thought you said you went through a lot of trouble in choosing?" Tatenashi pouted while deploying her suit.

After the bright light that was emitted from the suit's materialization, my eyes were greeted with a rather feminine machine. Tatenashi was now sporting an aqua colored I.S. machine. There were really only two things that really stood out about the machine, one of which was the fact that it was really only a large skirt and some thrusters. It was by no means weak or fragile just because the machine had a skirt. I knew this very well that simple appearance or armor really meant nothing due to the Absolute Defense protecting the pilot. The suit was definitely a weapon by all means.

Other than the skirt, the only noticeable thing was that Tatenashi was wielding the same spear that she had nearly impaled me with. The only reason why it was the only other noticeable thing left was because it appeared to be the only thing she was equipped with. After a quick look, I couldn't really see any other armament attached. It was far too plain to simply be just that. While it was entirely possible for her to hide her other equipment by simply not materializing them, it was unlikely that her third-generation weapon was hidden since it would just take too long to materialize during battle.

"Oh don't worry. I have a little surprise for you," I said before materializing a Gray Scale and two machine guns.

"I look forward to what you have to show me. Whenever you're ready," she said with a sudden shift in demeanor.

* * *

Tatenashi's Perspective

"This is actually quite boring you know," I moaned while watching my underclassman just swiftly circle around me while shooting a continuous stream of bullets at me.

"I haven't even taken a single point of damage you know," I taunted.

Though I was just trying to goad him into doing something else, I had to actually focus all my attention on the bullets to simply block the shots. The Mysterious Lady's nanomachines, though useful, were quite difficult to manipulate well. Just trying to move all the water in my shield to take on the attacks head on and make certain points in my water barrier to block bullets was difficult.

It wasn't as though I couldn't move from my position with the barrier erect. In fact, it would have been a lot easier for me to just dodge in try to attack. The only thing was that I wanted to see what type of fighter Ichika was. He was the first male pilot and he was brazen enough to challenge me to a fight. I didn't want the fight to end too soon. If I went all out, I wouldn't be able to see what he was made of.

There was also the fact that I couldn't be careless in this fight. While it seemed that Ichika was still a beginner given his standard fight patterns, I couldn't help but feel something was off. He was the brother of Ms. Orimura and I had seen how he was able to react to my attacks this morning. Just from those alone, I figured that he was hiding something.

"Why don't you come closer? I thought you would have liked to get up close and personal," I called out with my usual flirty tone as his attacks continued to no avail.

That was when the ground from under me suddenly exploded and sent dust and smoke up into the air. The sudden blast had only dazed me for a fraction of a second, but it was enough to break my concentration to keep up my barrier. Though this explosion was technically a surprise attack, it wasn't beyond my ability to recover from because I had become more or less accustomed to surprise attacks ever since I became the student council president. The only problem was that I couldn't gather enough water to erect the barrier again since there was too much smoke and dust interfering with my nanomachines. Although, it was probably for the best since Ichika was definitely going to take this opportunity to strike, and using the water shield would numb my senses in my visionless situation.

Taking a look at my shield points, I noticed that about a sixth of my energy was gone from the simple blast. What had he exactly done to cause the blast in the first place? I had been keeping my eyes on him the whole time, and not once did he do anything other than shoot bullets at me. The bullets didn't even drop anywhere near me, so it couldn't have been in the metal. I hadn't moved either, so he couldn't have placed anything under me.

Before I could figure out what he had done, I heard a quite hum somewhere just outside the smoke. It was coming from the location where Ichika would have come in to attack me given his circling pattern, and I knew he had to have come in from that direction given the amount of time that had passed and the maximum speed the Raphael Revive could go. Without putting too much more thought into it, I jabbed my spear through the smoke and struck something. The sound went silent and was replaced with the sound of shattering metal.

Unfortunately for me, Ichika was not wielding the vibration sword that I had just destroyed. Instead of being where he should have been given the machine's limitations, he was standing right behind me. I hadn't even noticed until my I.S. detected an object in such close proximity, and even then, my arm was extending. I wasn't able to counterattack with everything that was going on.

"Guess I was right about you liking it up close and personal," I sighed over how I was going to fall so far behind despite being cautious.

Before I knew, I felt a sudden jolt as something smashed straight into my back. While the machine barely budged given its AIC functions, the force was tremendous as it had reduced my shield points down to two thirds. Some of the attack even pierced through the Absolute Barrier; I just experienced a slamming sensation on my back.

The only weapon that came to my mind was the Gray Scale given the amount of damage I was taking.

Right after my analysis, I tried to get away in order to get away from his next attack. But before I could get so much as a foot away, I was greeted with another explosion that sent me flying back into Ichika's grasp. My stomach was soon greeted with a very familiar sensation and I watched my points drop even further.

"Rusty Nail," I cried out just to get my weapon out as quickly as I could.

I didn't even care if doing so was considered a rookie method to bring out my weapon. This was a situation that required immediate action. Any spare time was going to help, even if it was less than a tenth of a second. If I didn't do anything and just take another hit, I was going to lose and badly.

A bright light started to shine in my palm, but I didn't even wait for it to completely materialize before I latched it onto the Gray Scale to just stop Ichika in his track. While my plan had succeeded in terms of catching the weapon, Ichika ejected the arm carrying the Gray Scale and dashed off.

Following Ichika's lead, I flew straight out of the smoke in the opposite direction. I had decided to abandon my Rusty Nail as well given the fact that it was still latched onto the Gray Scale. This was clearly the right decision given how both weapons soon exploded into bits mere moment after I escaped the death trap.

"Ah… I was so close too," a disappointed said from across the large field.

"I'm not that easy you know," I said playfully as I managed to finally escape the barrage of blows that Ichika had dealing out to me.

"I know. I had to sacrifice two of my weapons and my arm," he groaned.

"Still, what exactly did you do? There were several explosions, but I never did figure out what caused the first one."

"I used a grenade for all of them," he said sheepishly while materializing a second Gray Scale on his remaining I.S. arm and katana in the other.

"But I didn't see you throw one in the beginning. If I recall correctly, weren't you just shooting at me from quite a distance?" I responded with a confused expression.

I was really confused for two reasons. I was confused as to why Ichika decided to bring grenades to the fight and how one had gotten through my defenses so easily. While the grenades proved to be quite effective in this particular match, they were obsolete weapons that wouldn't normally work in any other match. Grenades were simply too slow for practical use since the second-generation models rolled out and could only be used once. It was very rare to ever find someone who could and would use grenades for strategic attacks.

"I just materialized it right under you."

"Say that again," I said with a dumbfounded look.

"I just deployed it right at your feet."

This was quite unusual. I knew that it was possible to materialize weapons at a distance, but no one ever did so. There was no incentive to do so in any situation since materializing weapons beyond your reach was just useless. What was the point in forming a weapon that you couldn't use? The idea of even practicing that skill was just plain silly.

"Why would you even consider using grenades and long range materialization? Both seemed pretty useless in most situations," I called out in order to learn more about how Ichika formed his tactics.

"Your spear more or less told me that you had to have some form of defensive equipment in order to protect you from long-range attacks since it would be the only thing you wouldn't be able to reach easily. I also know that all defensive equipment in the third-generation have the tendencies to require far too much input from the pilot to the point that the pilot usually has a difficult time in observing the rest of the environment," he said with a smirk.

"I must applaud you for doing so much damage using such a strategy. You're the first one at this school to even get me past the halfway point, and as a reward for your accomplishment, I'll show you something I've been developing for a while now. Unfortunately for the both of us, the end has come," I said sternly before focusing on my nanomachines once more.

Unlike before, I wasn't forming a water barrier. I was instead layering the surface of my body with several separate layers of impenetrably dense water. While the concept seemed more difficult than forming a water barrier, it was honestly much easier for me to do since I only had to imagine the contours of my body and I.S. to form this new armor. As the Russian Representative, the visualization was as natural as breathing to me. As a result, my senses were more or less uninhibited from the nanomachines.

Looking forward, I saw Ichika stare intently at my new technique. What I saw was a mixture of excitement and agitation. He must have realized that his attacks would no longer be able to touch me and that nothing he could do would be able to change that fact.

"Don't stare at my figure so intently," I giggled.

"I can't help it. You're finally showing me what makes you the best," he said with no real attempt to play along with my flirty attitude.

"You ready to dance with the Mysterious Lady?" I asked while rushing towards him.

"If you can keep up!"

After yelling out, he quickly charged straight at me, but at speeds beyond what the Mysterious Lady could reach. While it was supposed to be impossible, it really didn't surprise me since he managed to get behind me before during his initial attack. In any case, it didn't matter. I had to reduce his shields too zero regardless of whether or not he was going faster than I could.

I lunged at him with my spear, and made sure to leave an opening for Ichika to strike. In an instant, Ichika simply slid towards my weak point and slashed my back with the katana. While it was true that he had used the blade with his normal arm, I still felt a dull impact as the blade sunk into the first few layers of my water armor. As I went cut deeper into the armor, I increased the density of the water and shattered his blade.

The sudden loss of his weapon had caused Ichika to stumble. This allowed me to perform my first real attack as I dematerialized the Heavy Rain and quickly deployed it in my stretched out arm, but backwards. Not even letting it deployment finish, I drew back my arm quickly and felt the spear strike solid metal. I didn't check to see if Ichika was still attached to what I assumed to have been the Gray Scale and open fired using the gatling gun embedded in my weapon.

After letting loose for a few seconds, I took a look back and saw the damage I had done. What my eyes were greeted with was the sight of a severely damaged shield with no boy attached. Ichika had clearly detached the arm like last time to escape most of the damage, but this time there was no explosion. Judging from the lack of explosion, I had to guess that he had only brought three grenades with him. Not like it mattered if he had more though since my water armor would prevent the explosion from reaching me.

"That's quite the impressive armor you have there. Perfect for defense and it doesn't seem to inhibit your movements or focus despite being a third-generation design," the boy laughed as he stood a bit further along the field.

"I'm glad that you like it, but it's still incomplete. I still have a ways to go before it's ready for the Mondo Grosso," I giggled out of delight over the fact that Ichika had not been done in by my attack.

"I see. So this technique isn't completely impenetrable yet?" he asked as he materialized two more katanas.

"No, I'm quite certain that it can't be broken. At least not with the katanas you are using as you saw earlier."

"True, but they're all I have left in my inventory. Well… other than my machine guns, but those are useless at this point. I also don't plan to use these swords on you just yet," my opponent stated before jabbing the tips straight into his legs.

"What?!"

The boy was damaging his own suit, and I couldn't fathom why. His katanas were slowly creating giant gaping holes as the metal armor on the legs was split. Several sparks soon flew out of the legs as the blade cut through several cords. I could even see the boy sweat as he tried to push his swords further down using his own strength to do so.

"We're going to definitely end this soon. As it stands, I pretty sure that my suit is going to fall apart," he laughed as he finished the deed.

"Yeah, but not by me. What could you possibly be thinking to damage your own suit?" I asked with a hint of concern over my underclassman's sanity.

"Just following a hunch!"

Somehow, Ichika had managed to appear right before me. How he managed to do so was beyond me. He had been moving fast before, but the final burst in speed exceeded even that. I was unable to even respond to the sudden change in positions. My eyes quickly moved to the blade in his hands out of sheer instinct as I ducked to avoid the blade. I really shouldn't have needed to since the blade wouldn't have been able to reach me, but the absurd fighting style had caught me off my guard.

As a result of trying to dodge the weapon, I received a solid kick to my head. The blow barely affected me for all I felt was a dull impact and a splash of water as my armor was blown away. In front of my eyes, I saw the gaping wound that Ichika had inflicted on himself leaking fluids that had previously been part of my armor. It was still sparking and was stuck in place as my hand had instinctively grabbed it to stop it from coming any closer.

Even though I was shocked over the turn of events, I still jabbed my spear with my remaining arm directly into Ichika's abdominal area and let loose the Heavy Rain's bullets. A bright light soon appeared above my head as the pixels of the shield breaking appeared. I heard a soft whirl as Ichika tried to get away, but I twirled the Heavy Rain to destroy Ichika's free leg.

Before I managed to cut off Ichika's only means of escape, he ejected from both armor parts and went soaring up into the air. This left him with only the katanas and the thrusters. Other than that, he only had about half of the amount of shield points that I had. Even then, I noticed that Ichika seemed to have been preparing for another strike. It was unfortunate for him though.

"Match Over. The student council president has won the match. Also, Mr. Orimura… Please head over to Ms. Orimura's office after dinner," a scared voice announced over the intercom.

"Shit, I'm really screwed now," Ichika groaned.

"You still did very well against a Representative," I giggled as the boy floated down.

"You don't have to pretend that I actually stood a chance in order to protect my pride. I know where I stand in comparison to you. If you had gone out all out from the start, I wouldn't so much as have gotten a single point off of your shield," he said while scratching the back of his head.

"True."

"Wasn't that supposed to be the part when you deny my claims?"

"Fine… You did managed to break through my armor, though you did essentially destroy the I.S. in doing so," I giggled while rubbing my junior's head intensely.

"Please don't do that. I'm already going to receive punishment there as it is."

"Don't worry. I'll save you from punishment."

"Can you really?" he asked hopefully.

"I'll at least see what I can do. You did just damage an I.S. beyond repair…" I whistled while looking away from the now pouting boy.

* * *

Chifuyu's Perspective

"Do you think Ichika is ready?" I asked the girl sitting across from me.

"You saw the fight. Shouldn't you be able to make a proper judgment on that alone," she snickered back at me.

"I'm asking you because I'll never think my little brother will be ready. Why should he have to be ready to fight off Phantom Task? He shouldn't even have to deal with the I.S. world in the first place," I said irritably.

"He's honestly quite good considering he's only been training for two years. I would have to say that he is right about the same level as weaker Representatives, but I can't say for sure. Most of his attacks only succeeded because they were surprising, but he was also piloting a second-generation model," the student council president said while weighing the different factors that either weighed my brother down or lifted him up.

"So he's not ready," I said while gripping the hem of my skirt.

"Unfortunately, he is probably still too weak at the moment. He'll probably be ready to take on whatever Phantom Task can throw at him by the time the Mondo Grosso comes around," Ms. Sarashiki said with a gentle smile.

"What makes you say that?"

"I have a feeling that he is going to grow to the point that he could be the next Mondo Grosso champion."

"What about yourself? You did just beat him," I said with a brow raised.

"What about you? You make it sound as though you don't believe in his abilities."

"I have faith, but I just don't want him to win," I said seriously.

"Why not?" the girl said with a genuinely confused face.

"He'll get the stupid impression that he has to protect me. It's my job to protect that idiot."

"You two are so alike; always wanting to protect something. He'll definitely become the strongest like his big sister. Maybe he'll even become stronger," the girl said annoyingly.

"In any case, please look after him when I cannot," I said with a slightly annoyed expression smeared on my face.

"So long as he needs it," the girl said as she skipped out of the room.

I was soon left in an empty room to my thoughts. While it was silent, I was unable to relax due to some of the things that the annoying student had said. Because of what she said, my mind was flooded with worry about the fact that Ichika had incessant desire to protect me. It was supposed to be the other way around. I was the older sister and the Brunhilde. It was my job to protect Ichika from harm.

But I hadn't really been too on top of things despite being the strongest. I had let Ichika fall in danger twice. Both of which were completely life changing to the point that Ichika would never have been able to return to a normal life. He was forever cursed to lie outside a peaceful life. Even if I was able to shelter him for three more years, it was still abnormal since he was going to be attending an ex-all-girls-school.

There was also the fact that Phantom Task was still lurking about in the shadows. Knowing them, they will try to take Ichika away. It was an inevitable fact that she would try to capture her most prized possession. There was no doubt in my mind since she had Alice modify him like she had done to both Tabane and me.

I needed to get my mind off of this. It was too late worrying about now since I change Phantom Task's goals. Regardless of what I wanted, Ichika and I needed to be ready to fend them off.

Fortunately for me, my thoughts were interrupted by a video call. Putting it on screen, my eyes were soon greeted by the current president of the Dunois Corporation.

"Good evening Ms. Orimura. I just called to ask how Ichika was adapting to his new life in paradise," the blond man said with a smile.

"He still as hot headed as ever. Try to guess what he did today," I smirked.

"Hit on a girl?"

"Well, he did hit our strongest student in a fight," I sighed as I remembered Ichika's embarrassing declaration from the afternoon.

"He challenged your best? That certainly sounds like something he would do, but how did he do?"

"He got destroyed at the end when the girl decided to stop playing around. I can even show you the video if you are interested."

It was the simple truth. While Ichika had done a significant amount of damage to Ms. Sarashiki, the damage had only gone through because she was too interested in seeing what he could have done. It wasn't as though it was her fault though since he was the first of his kind. I had even asked her to observe Ichika's capabilities.

"That sounds pretty harsh. But as the little brother of the Brunhilde, anything less than victory isn't good enough for the Orimura family," the man teased with an irritating tone.

"In any case, are you calling to tell me when your sister is coming? I failed to see her on the school's rosters."

"She'll show up in about a month's time. We are currently modifying the Raphael Revive Custom I," Charles said rather sourly.

"I take it that not all is going well in developing your next gen models."

"You know how it is with France not being part of the EU. Just getting enough funding is a problem in of itself since the government seems more interested in just finding and training their next potential Valkyrie," the man said with a despairing look.

"Well it's too be expected since France won the last tournament with the Raphael Custom I. It still is unfortunate that the Valkyries aren't allowed to participate after winning the Mondo Grosso. It makes the tournament much less interesting when the fan favorites aren't allowed to participate," I chuckled.

"And whose fault do you think that is?" Charles said with an irritated tone.

He had every right to be pissed. While it was because the government decided to focus more on finding a pilot that caused Charles to be in such a predicament, I was the reason as to why Valkyries weren't allowed to participate in the Mondo Grosso. It was to be expected when I took down my opponent in mere seconds during the second tournament. It was so anticlimactic that winners were banned from the tournaments, and the title for subsequent winners was changed to Valkyrie since no one could challenge me for the title of Brunhilde anymore.

"I had something to do back then. In open honesty, I probably should have just forfeited the match," I said bitterly as some memories resurfaced.

"I doubt Ichika would be too happy to hear those words from his big sister," the man said in an attempt to lighten up the mood.

"Yeah… In any case, what's done is done."

"Is there anything else that was interesting today?" Charles continued in an attempt to move further away from the heavy conversation from earlier.

"Ichika claimed that he was going to win this year's Mondo Grosso," I chuckled.

"Figures. He always was competitive."

"You should take a look in a mirror. I still remember how you two were like when you first met."

"Please, I was just playing along with your little brother."

"Sure you were," I laughed.

Author's Notes

#1: For the most part these notes will just be here to clarify some things that may not have been so obvious while reading. Please favorite and follow if you liked this story. Also send reviews of things you liked or disliked so that I can try to improve the work. Send questions and I will probably respond to some of them in the next chapter.


	9. Chapter 9

Disclaimer: I do not own I.S. and no copyright infringement is intended.

"Speaking/Reading"

Chifuyu's Perspective

"So Ichika, what did you think you were doing?"

I tried to phrase my question as calmly as I could, which was a task in of itself. The reasons as to why I was so pissed were numerous, but there was one specific reason as to why I was so infuriated with my little brother. While most would have assumed that I was pissed over the property damage my little brother caused, I could forgive Ichika wrecking a multimillion dollar suit and the core in the process. What I couldn't forgive the fact that Ichika had literally put his life in harm's way in order to win a match. No. He didn't put his life in danger to win, but to just put up a fight.

"I'm really sorry about the suit, Chifuyu-nee," my brother said with puppy eyes to alleviate his future punishment.

"Are you sorry about removing the pilot safety features in that core?" I asked with a largely inflated temple.

"But I know I can endure the stress_ Owwww."

"You want to say that again to my face?"

I hadn't even let him finish his comment. I knew very well that Ichika was capable of enduring a significant amount of force on his body. I myself could endure the pain, and my little brother had undergone at least a similar operation as I had. He could survive those extreme speeds and forces, but he wasn't invincible. It was that one fact that he didn't seem to understand. He understood how much damage he was inflicting on himself, but just didn't seem to care too much so long as he wouldn't fall.

I didn't even want to think about the fact that Ichika had nearly continued the match without any armor to protect himself. If I hadn't stopped the match and if Ms. Sarashiki made a mistake, he could have been severely injured if not killed.

"I said I could endure it. I didn't say that I wasn't_ Owwwwww. That really hurts!"

"If you can endure that stress, then you can endure my hits. Besides, this is punishment for breaking our promise. I told you to never remove the safety unless you found yourself in a situation in which you would die by not doing so," I scowled over Ichika's stubbornness.

"But I would have died of emba_ Owwwwwwww. Please stop hitting me!"

"You still lost idiot, and no! I won't stop hitting you until you stop gambling your life!" I yelled to end the conversation.

Why couldn't this idiot just do things the normal way? I wish I was just getting angry at Ichika for essentially destroying an I.S. suit; that shit actually happened on a relatively normal basis for the I.S. world. We could actually replace the damn equipment since we were being funded by the Japanese government. It wouldn't have even been that hard to convince the government to give us more money since Ichika, as the first male pilot, had his first official match today. But this jerk was far too flippant for his own good.

After a few moments of cringing from the last hit, Ichika said, "I'm sorry sis. I promise I won't do that again."

I just stuck out my arm with my pinky extended after he said his apologies. It took a few moments for Ichika to notice, but when he did, he hooked his pinky to mine.

"Next time you pull this stunt, I'll make you eat a cluster bomb," I said with a sigh.

"Please don't even joke about that. I know you actually have some on this campus," my little brother said with a cringe.

"Who's joking," I laughed out.

"Before I forget… Where am I going to be staying?" my little brother warily asked to move away from the current topic.

"Well… I couldn't get you a single room. Since we had only officially announced your condition to the world very recently, which was after the school had assigned rooms, the school decided to just stick you with someone who was going to be living alone…" I said with my voice trailing off.

While it was true that Ichika's reveal had come after the room assignments had been set, it wasn't the school that had decided to have Ichika live with a fellow student. I also didn't have a real choice in the matter either. It was surprising since I did like to occasionally ruffle Ichika's feathers every now and then.

The decision came from a certain rabbit that everyone in the world knew. I wasn't complaining since it seemed interesting, and the person Ichika had to room with wasn't too troublesome. At least she was not troublesome to the point that I would have to worry about becoming an aunt anytime soon. In fact, the arrangement probably made it so that I wouldn't be an aunt for at least three years. It was also only for a few weeks, so it wasn't like too much harm could come of this decision.

The only thing that I could have wished for was for Tabane to have simply asked the school. The memory of the message that the mad scientist had sent still made me nervous simply because this school was based entirely on technology. A very simple virus that a certain genius could program could have made my life a living hell for quite a bit if I had not conceded.

"Chifuyu-nee… You paired me with Houki didn't you…" Ichika said with a rather dumbfounded look on his face.

"You don't have a say in the matter," I said with a mischievous grin.

"Do I ever?" he said with a defeated tone.

"Nope. Any other questions?"

"Is there at least a toilet in the room or a boy's bathroom close to the dorm?"

"…"

My lack of response only made Ichika slap his forehead in frustration. Even though he didn't say anything, I could tell he was cursing a lot in that brain of his. I would have done the same thing in his shoes. The worst part was that I hadn't even considered that issue until now.

* * *

Houki's Perspective

I wonder where my roommate could be. It was almost curfew and she was nowhere to be seen. Was she a no show? That was impossible. No matter how I look at it, no girl would ever consider not coming to this school unless they were dealing with world changing events. The simple perks of being a student were too high for anyone that had been accepted to simply forgo.

I guess that was inaccurate. I had nearly decided to not come to this school. The government had even offered me several offers in order to get me to even consider enrolling. Why I had listened to them, I wasn't too sure. I honestly hated the machine that she built. It ruined everything in this world. It ruined my life. It ruined my happiness.

Why exactly did she decide to create such an abomination?

My ears were soon greeted with the sound of knocking before I could stew over my thoughts much longer. It was a good thing as well. I was beginning to recall some depressing memories.

"Come in!" I called out to my future roommate.

"Are you decent Houki?" a male voice called out from beyond the door.

What was Ichika doing here? A better question was how did he know I was going to be staying in this particular room? Did he pull some strings in order to find me? No, this was Ichika I was talking about. I didn't ever recall him ever being too much of a pervert back when I was with him, but he is at that age now. No. My family and Chifuyu both raised him better than that. But would it have been so bad if he did seek me out?

In my flurry of crazed thoughts, I had jumped out of the bed to get to the door. Unfortunately, my usual fluid movements were completely out of my control. I lost balance and landed with a large thud.

"Are you okay?!" a concerned voice exclaimed outside, which was accompanied with a soft click of the door opening.

Before I could properly raise myself to greet Ichika, he was already by my side checking on my wellbeing. He was trying to ask me something, but his voice didn't reach my ears. I was simply too embarrassed to register too much. It didn't help how close he was and how he had wrapped one arm along my back to help raise me from the floor.

It wasn't until he had aided me to sitting on the bed when I had finally realized that I was causing Ichika to worry more with my unresponsive state. He was actually starting to wave his hand in front of my eyes and call out to me. His fingers were even starting to check if I could properly feel anything by lightly pinching my hand.

"What are you doing here?" I asked when I finally managed to break free from my confusion.

"I'm supposed to be I in this room as well," the boy said with a sigh of relief, which was most likely due to the fact that I was finally responding normally.

"Did you ask for this?"

I had to know. This was something far too important to let slide. Was Ichika interested in me? It was highly unlikely since it seemed that Ichika had only learned that I was attending this school today. There was no way he could have specifically asked to stay in the same room as I was.

But there was still the smallest possibility that I was wrong. Ichika could have asked. His sister was a teacher at this school. She could have easily influenced the school's decision. It would even be sensible since I was a close friend to the both of them. I could even say that we were almost related as it was now. It only made sense if the two of us were together. If Ichika had to live in the same room as anyone else in this school, it had to be me.

"Houki, you do realize how absurd it would be for a school to even acquiesce to such a request. The idea hadn't even crossed my mind because I thought for sure I was going to be living alone," he rationalized as he crushed most of my hopes to dust.

While I could have been pissed that Ichika had unknowingly crushed a lot of my hopes, it would have been unreasonable for me to do so. He did give a fair point to what some would consider a common reaction. How else was he supposed to really reply? Was he supposed to be sleaze ball that asked to room with a girl?

The only things that I could be happy about for this situation was the fact that I was going to be living with Ichika and that Chifuyu had at least accepted me enough to let me live with him. It was still a far cry from what I wanted, but I couldn't expect more. Even though I harbored feelings for Ichika, we had been separated for several years. Ichika hadn't even kept up with his kendo, the link between us. I already knew that my affections were one sided and this was made more clear to me with Ichika's naivety, but what love wasn't one sided in the beginning.

"But I'm kind of glad that things turned out this way," Ichika said with a soft smile.

I stared at Ichika. Were my ears tricking me, or did Ichika actually say that he was happy about our current arrangements? No, I needed to stop thinking so optimistically. This was Ichika I was thinking about. I was quite sure that he didn't hold feelings for me, or at least not at this point. He was probably just happy that he was roomed with someone he knew and could get along with.

I must have been staring intensely again, for Ichika asked me, "You interested in sparring this week?"

"Challenging a champion? Kind of silly isn't?" I asked with a happy tone.

"It's what I do."

"Is losing part what you do as well," I said with a hearty laugh.

"That kind of stings you know," Ichika said with a wry laugh.

"Then just get stronger," I said flatly.

"That's the plan."

This was the Ichika I had always known. This was the boy that had come close to me during our childhood. This was the man I loved. His unwillingness to ever give up and to rise to the challenge was something I had come to admire for all these years.

* * *

Cecilia's Perspective

"Chelsea, I want you to research the incident that occurred at the Dunois Corporation two years ago. I believe that there may be pertinent information concerning Mr. Orimura's ability to pilot the I.S. somewhere in their restricted records," I asked my best friend and servant over the phone.

"Are you quite sure about that? Information such as that isn't exactly something that can or should be hidden. Concealing such information could be deemed as an infraction of several clauses in the Alaska Treaty. Accusations of such infractions, whether they be accurate or not, do not bode well for anyone. If you are really curious, shouldn't you ask the British government to investigate?" Chelsea said with concern.

"I'm not accusing anyone of anything. It's just that Mr. Orimura was talking about some things, and I wanted to confirm something. It's just to sate my curiosity, so I don't want this information to spread at all," I said defensively.

"How is the boy like?" my friend asked excitedly.

"You know it's unbecoming of a lady to be so curious."

"Says the girl poking her nose in French territory."

"Fair enough. To put it into words, Mr. Orimura is… an enigma."

"An enigma? Of course he is a mystery, but what I want to know was how you saw him."

"I can't really describe it. The word enigma suits him the best. He was nothing like I had ever seen in a man before. I had my expectations, and only his pride was what matched with my preconceived image. The only difference in my vision of his pride and his actions was that his pride wasn't arrogance. Everything else was so strange. He was really smart seeing how he worded his thoughts in certain situations and manipulated machines, but at the same time he was an utter dunce seeing as how common sense did not apply to him. Ichika claims that he is weak, but proves to be quite strong and capable. The more I try to look at him and define him, the more confused I get," I rambled as I tried to make sense of everything that I had heard, seen and learned today.

"I still don't quite understand what you mean by that, but I can take it that this boy interests you milady," Chelsea said with a giggle over the phone.

"He is definitely interesting in his own way, but that's to be expected from someone's whose existence just breaks the norm," I sighed as I remembered how unorthodox he was in every aspect, including his fighting style.

"I was more curious about how you saw him as the heir of the Alcott family," my maid asked with a rather seductive tone.

"You know I'm not looking for a partner at the moment. I have to focus on becoming the best in order to protect my family's assets," I huffed.

That was right. I couldn't waste my time and thoughts on anything else beyond my training. The deal with the government was to master the Blue Tears and become a Valkyrie. After seeing the match today, I was now more familiar with the large gap between a Candidate Representative and a true Representative. While I did have three years to succeed, it now seemed to just be three years. It was made very clear that being the best of this year's freshmen really meant nothing in comparison to the competition that would be at the Mondo Grosso.

"While it's applaudable that you are quite motivated to protect the Alcott name, you mustn't forget that this is really the only time that you will have the luxury to enjoy your youth. If you simply forgo the present, you might miss the chance to be happy," Chelsea said concernedly.

"If that is the cost to protect my family name, then so be it."

Chelsea tried to say something else, but decided not to do so after stumbling on her own words. While I could understand what Chelsea was trying to tell me, it wasn't advice that I could afford to follow. My friend seemed to have understood my predicament, and she decided to hold her opinion as a result. She must have known that regardless of what she said, she wouldn't have been able to convince me for my family name was on the line. My only remaining link to my family was at risk should I have failed in my duty.

"Pardon for my rudeness milady. I'll go find out more about Mr. Orimura. Good night."

"Good night, Chelsea," I said softly into the phone.

* * *

Madoka's Perspective

"So how did you enjoy Ichi-ni-san's first official match?" I asked with a grin on my face.

One of our agents managed to snag a copy of the video. When I had first seen it, I couldn't help but laugh at how Ichika had gotten into a fight on his first day. He had even nearly won and looked so serious. My favorite part was when he started ripping apart his own suit just to fight back. It was just a shame that he had lost at the end.

"He is progressing quite well for someone who had been trying to hide for the past two years. But he is still not ready yet. I still sense some immaturity coming from him that prevents him from achieving his full potential at the moment," Mother said with a stern croak.

"We can't help that since it's one of the side effects of the brain operation. It still is a far cry better than what happened to that crazy genius."

"True… How is progress going for the automated machine?"

"The development team says that it is going well, but they are currently stumped in pushing the specs to the same level as to what third-generation frames can achieve without safeties. There also seems to be a strange phenomenon. The machine seems to have developed the need to try to listen to conversations instead of just attacking," I said with a frown.

"But the machine can still operate at a level that would be challenging even for those in a third-generation frame?" Mother asked with a dark tone.

"Yes Mother. Even with these flaws, our scientists believe that the machine will prove to be up to par with your expectations."

"For their sake, they had better hope so… I have an interesting idea. We should celebrate Ichika getting into high school. We even have the perfect gift for him."

"Oh goody… Before I forget, how is Ni-ni doing? The surgeon said something about him having difficulty staying together."

"He is turning out to be a failure. His body doesn't seem capable of enduring the operation or surviving on his own, and he seems unable to even activate a core. As it stands, we'll probably just keep him in storage for future experimentation," the woman said rather heartlessly.

I honestly wasn't too surprised by how callous Mother was. She never was the nurturing type, which was fairly clear by how she felt nothing when her 'children' left her. Mother probably never even loved any of us since almost all of us went through that strenuous operation. If she had any feeling of care for us, she would have left us as we were. We were all probably replaceable as well.

The very thought that everyone was replaceable made my stomach churn ever so slightly. It wasn't because I found such a method to be despicable. I relished in the idea of working in such a society in which I could get rid of the useless. The reason my stomach churned was because I was also replaceable and that I only existed because I was supposed to replace someone. It was sickening for me to have to think that I replaced someone simply because I fit the bill rather have moved up in the ranks on my own.

"Madoka, go and continue the search for any I.S. under development. See if there is any of particular interest," Mother commanded me before I walked out the room.

Author's Notes

#1: For the most part these notes will just be here to clarify some things that may not have been so obvious while reading. Please favorite and follow if you liked this story. Also send reviews of things you liked or disliked so that I can try to improve the work. Send questions and I will probably respond to some of them in the next chapter.

#2: Thank you W for correcting my mistake in the last chapter. I do read comments and they do help me in editing the writing. So if you do see an error, do tell me.


	10. Chapter 10

Disclaimer: I do not own I.S. and no copyright infringement is intended.

"Speaking/Reading"

Ichika's Perspective

"Man… You're good Houki…" I panted after finishing our sparring match for the day.

It wasn't as though I was simply out of shape for me to have gotten so tired after one match. Houki was clearly tired as well given how she was having difficulty standing, and she was one of the best in the world when it came to kendo. The reason why we were so tired was because that one match had lasted for about two hours. I wasn't surprised though. We've been doing the same thing for about a week now, and the matches had more or less been the same in duration.

"You as well… Though you should really learn to control your strength… You waste too much energy… and it's making my arms go numb after each strike."

"Only way… for me to actually win…"

"You should focus… more on technique…"

"Against someone who has a better grasp on a similar style?" I managed to say without a large pause.

"How much… stamina do you have? I'm still… trying to catch my breath… You were the one flailing your sword," she said with an expression of mixed anger and happiness.

Not to sound too egotistical, I was good, but not in the same way that Houki was. She had trained using her style for her whole life. I had stopped for quite a bit and had only trained for two years, and even then it was very little in comparison to what else I was being trained in. My skills were nowhere near the same level as Houki was, but I was still far stronger in terms of strength and far faster due to the training I received. It was the only way I would have been able to fight toe to toe with Houki for so long.

In the end though, neither of us had backed down against the other's style. While I had gone mainly on the offensive, Houki had been blocking my onslaught of attacks, and she only broke her defenses whenever she had the chance to counterattack. The amount of openings that I left was quite few in number though, and the majority of the times that I did get exposed, Houki was unable to take advantage of the opening due to the physical gap between us. As a result, the matches always lasted for long durations.

These matches weren't really a match of who was skilled or who was stronger. The match was more or less about who had the better stamina and the ability to keep one's concentration. In the end, it was always the slightest distractions or miscalculations such as the kendo sticks cracking that decided the match.

"So whose win was it this time?" I asked since this match had ended because the match was simply taking too long.

"You still seem to have some gas left… So I guess it's your win this time," she managed to say as she managed to catch her breath.

"So it looks like its two wins and two losses."

"Looks like it," Houki said with a smile.

"Hoho… So this is where the class rep likes to spend his afternoons," a flirty voice called out.

Looking towards the source, both Houki and I recognized a figure walking in the dojo. Unlike the two of us though, the girl was wearing her normal school uniform and was using a fan to blow air into her face. I felt myself tense up as the idea of a rematch popped in my head since I needed to be able to beat her at some point to fulfill my goals. Houki gave a glare, but as to why, I wasn't so sure. She was probably just upset that someone who wasn't part of the kendo club was walking about with such a flippant attitude.

"Just making up for lost time with my friend. What are you doing here, Tatenashi?" I responded enthusiastically.

"Just coming over to check up on and ask you a couple of questions," she said while her eyes drifted about the room.

"Shoot," I said while taking out a lukewarm bottle of water from my bag.

"Have you joined any clubs as of the moment?" she asked while closing in.

"Nope, and I don't think I will have the time once the year really starts progressing," I said while stretching my sore muscles.

After saying that I wasn't going to join any clubs, I felt a fairly intense glare burn at my back. It must have pissed Houki off that I wasn't going to dedicate myself to kendo. I should have expected such a reaction given her dedication to kendo. While I had enjoyed kendo and the sparring matches, I honestly had other concerns to deal with already and there would be more once I received the Byakushiki from Taba-nee.

"Not even the student council?" she asked with a dangerous glint in her eyes.

It wasn't even a second until she deployed her spear and launched it behind her. Looking behind her, I saw a very pale girl who had narrowly dodged the spear, which was now embedded into the floor right in front of her. Neither Houki nor I had even sensed that there was someone else in the room. I didn't even see her even though she was technically in my line of sight.

"If you were to join, you would get better at the I.S. in no time," she continued while getting a little too close for comfort.

"I'll think about it," I chuckled nervously before heading out.

How exactly did I manage to take out most of her shield energy? It seemed quite impossible even when she was holding back given how her ability to protect herself was clearly on a whole different level. I wasn't discouraged from the exhibition of her strength though. It merely gave me more of a reason to get stronger, but I had my doubts that becoming part of the student council would have made me stronger.

Judging by how carefree the girl was and how she wanted everything to be interesting, I was probably going to be the one stuck with all of the paperwork if I joined. I already had a lot on my plate as it was. I needed all the time I could get to complete my I.S. design and allocate the rest to getting stronger when I got the Byakushiki back.

As I was walking away, I heard a quick shuffle behind me. The sound made me look behind to see Houki giving me a harsh stare. It was back to this old game. Houki, I can't read minds or communicate my thoughts through facial expressions. That stuff only occurred in movies and TV shows. Why exactly was she so intent on communicating with the eyes instead of the mouth?

After a while, I caved in and asked, "What's wrong Houki?"

"Why won't you join the kendo club?"

"Because I have things to do."

"Is it more important to you than being able to practice kendo with me?"

That was pretty straight to the point and not the exact phrasing that I was looking forward to hear. I had a feeling that Houki might have had feelings for me before, but I wasn't too sure until this point due to how she never talked about anything without having me to twist her arm about it. Her wording implied that she just wanted me to be with her more, and probably not as friends.

"Houki, what is this really about?" I asked with the faintest glimmer of hope that things wouldn't go down the path that I was imagining. Unfortunately for me, my hopeful attitude had seeped into my voice ever so slightly. That in turn probably sent a message to Houki that I did not intend.

After questioning her, she began to turn red from embarrassment. She quickly began babbling a nonsensical stream of words in an attempt to either calm herself or gather her resolve. I didn't know which. It could have been both for all I knew, but there was one thing that I did know for certain. The next few moments were going to suck, and a lot.

"Ichika… What do you think about… well… us?" she asked nervously after she had finally regained her composure.

"… I'm sorry, Houki… Whatever plans you think about having with me… I'm not sure if those will be possible," I said bitterly.

"…"

I didn't even have to look at the girl next to me to know what she looked like at the moment. I didn't want to even see the image. It was painful for me as well to know that I was causing her such grief.

I also couldn't leave it at that.

"I don't think I can have a normal future with anyone anymore," I said slowly while looking up into the sky.

"What do you mean?" Houki asked with a trembling voice.

"It all has to do with why I need to win the Mondo Grosso. It's why I need to be the strongest."

"…"

"A group is after me, and I don't know who they are. The only thing I know is that they're far too dangerous. They are so dangerous that I've been in hiding for the past two years, possibly five if my assumptions about something are right. They're so dangerous that I can't even fathom the idea of having a family of my own," I continued softly.

"But can you at least see me as someone important to you. More important than just a childhood friend," Houki croaked.

"I don't know. It already hurts having to accept the fact that I can't be with anyone. Please don't make me think about the impossible," I said with a pained expression.

I could feel my eyes moisten from how depressing the conversation was. Of course I wanted to contemplate the idea of having a girlfriend. Of course I wanted to find someone I could love. Of course I wanted someone to hold dear. But I knew that having someone like that was far too dangerous for the both of us considering the fact that a terrorist organization was after me. As a result, I never had anyone closer to me than just as friends outside of those I considered family.

I wasn't even sure if keeping contact with friends was even a good idea, but I couldn't bear the idea of being alone. It made me feel guilty that I was putting my friends in danger, but it was too painful to isolate myself. The only consolation that I had was that the group didn't seem too interested in harming my friends and that my friends would probably never be within the vicinity should I be attacked.

"What if they were to disappear? What if they ceased to exist? Would it be possible… for us to be?" Houki asked with hope sinking into her voice.

"Maybe… I'd at least consider it," I croaked as I tried to hold in my emotions.

"Then I'll wait until then. I'll wait for the time when you are free. I'll wait for when you can give me an honest response. One from your true feelings and not from your fear," she said with a somewhat comforting tone.

"I'm sorry, Houki. I truly am," I whispered as the sun sank lower and lower.

* * *

Charles's Perspective

"So how is our guest?" I asked my secretary.

"She is… quite the handful. Are you really going to be able to negotiate with her?" she asked with hesitation.

"Figures… Anyone involved with the Orimuras tend to have that attribute going for them," I said with a dry chuckle over how troublesome, but entertaining the group was.

Despite my fairly jovial state, I was in an unfavorable position given my current circumstances. Because the French government had decided to lower our budget to make room finding new Candidate Representatives, progress for our third-generation had come to a screeching halt. The lack of progress put the company at risk because it was probable that the government was even considering pulling our development license in order to have small companies simply make patches and small upgrades to the Raphael Revive Custom series. The only silver lining in the whole situation was that Charlotte had become a Candidate Representative, but I couldn't find myself to enjoy the fact too much. Mother certainly didn't enjoy the news.

Just because France had finally managed to enter the ranks of the Valkyries last year using a second-generation machine, too many of the officials believed that the golden age was upon us. But I guess that I couldn't blame them too much for their decision. If France were to win a second time in a row, France would have established itself as the center of the I.S. world. Regardless of the reason, I needed to find other resources to supplement the lacking budget caused by the content and hubris in the government, and it just so happened that a certain person came knocking on my doorstep.

"Is there anything I should know before meeting with her?" I asked my secretary prior to entering the room.

"Two actually. She wants carrots and don't be too surprised to what you are about to see," she sighed while rubbing her temples.

"An odd request, but go get her some. We can't afford to displease our guest," I said with a hint of anxiety over what was to come.

I promptly opened the door to greet my guest. What I met was a giant metallic carrot looking ship that stood erect under a gaping hole for a roof. There were several bits of rubble that were strewn across the ground, which indicated that the hole in the roof had indeed been caused by the carrot. When my eyes were finally able to move from the destruction, they were set on the woman with metallic rabbit ears sitting on the couch.

She was here to fund the company right? She wasn't here to make us go bankrupt sooner right?

"Are you the president of this company?" the woman asked quite cheerfully.

"That depends, are you the inventor of the I.S.?" I retorted while trying to contain all of my emotions.

"That depends on how you're feeling," she continued in an attempt to push me past the breaking point.

"Absolutely livid if you aren't who you say you are," I snapped.

"Ehhh… You're not as fun as Ichika said you were," the genius pouted.

This woman sounded like a complete child. Not fun? Of course I wouldn't be too happy or entertaining when a room in my company was utterly smashed to bits. But what was I supposed to expect. For all I knew, this amount of damage could have been considered as trivial in this genius's opinion. I wouldn't have been surprised too since she had thrown the world into chaos by introducing her little toy.

I needed to calm down. Regardless of what she had done, I needed to be on her good side. There was also the fact that she had come to me personally. That fact in of itself could drastically change the fate of the company if the information was leaked out to the public.

Using her appearance and behavior as indicators, I began to talk to her as if I were talking to a child.

"I'm sorry Professor. It's just that I don't particularly enjoy having people destroy my stuff. I'm sure that you yourself wouldn't enjoy having people break into your lab."

"Oh yeah, I forgot about fixing this. Just wait a second," the woman said before snapping her fingers.

In an instant, I saw several pieces of the rubble rise from the ground and move towards the edges of the broken roof. In a matter of seconds, the pieces were coming together and the edges began to meld into one another. The cracks disappeared, and the surface became smoother. Eventually, the entire room was fixed, and it looked as good as new.

I didn't question it. It honestly wasn't worth the headache. The fact that she was Tabane Shinonono was good enough of an explanation for anything.

"Is there something you want from us?" I asked with a straight face.

"I want Core Zero-Zero-One," she said a flippant smile.

"I'm assuming you mean that you want to purchase our core since it technically belongs to us?"

"Not exactly, but you are pretty close."

I could more or less tell why Professor Shinonono wanted the core. It was the core that Ichika was going to use, and simply possessing the core would insinuate that the boy had allied himself with France. As the only male pilot, siding with anyone would cause diplomatic problems throughout the world. For his sake, he needed a core that belonged to no nation.

"What do I get in return? Even if I didn't use this core for testing, it still holds significant historical value. That alone is something worth keeping as a trophy."

"It's not about what I'll give you, but what my apprentice will give you," the rabbit said with a sly smile.

"Go on."

"I know you need a third-generation frame and that you need the results before the Mondo Grosso. My cute little student is currently trying to build a design that revolves around certain aspects that this company considered in its designs."

"You want me to trade a core for to implement such designs."

"Bing-Bong!" she said with a victory sign.

This was quite interesting. I could reap quite a substantial amount of benefits from making such a deal. I was already receiving data concerning Ichika's ability to pilot the I.S., but now I was being offered her apprentice's suit designs to further the company. While I would have preferred a suit from the genius herself, Ichika, who was the most likely person to be her apprentice, was going to be the designer, and I knew that he was quite capable of keeping up with just about anything. These prospects were better than any substantial sum of money simply because it was a surefire way of getting a suit.

But I could still get more than what I was receiving.

"But that still poses a few problems does it not?" I asked with as much concern milked into my voice as I could.

My somewhat exaggerated concern had caught the attention of my guest as her rabbit ears suddenly perked up.

I continued lamenting with, "If Ichika were to give or sell us an I.S. design, I'm sure that many would consider him trying to join France. At that point, wouldn't Ichika still face the same problems he would have had if he just used the company's core as his personal unit?"

"Then nothing should be a problem if you just take the plans in secret," she said with a somewhat dark smile.

"But you must know the current predicament that my company is facing. As it stands, the government has cut our funding. It would appear strange if a company that was going under suddenly reemerged with designs from a frozen project would it not? Unless we are able to find a new source of funding, we will be unable to mask the source of the plans. As a result, we won't be able to acquiesce to your demands," I continued despite the fact that I knew that the rabbit knew that I was just being greedy at this point.

"Oh, you are fun after all. I'll bite," the woman said before quickly tapping several buttons that had appeared before her.

Did I do it, or was she just messing with me? I didn't want to get my hopes up too high since this woman seemed to only seek out for what she considered fun. For all I knew, she might have been trying to make the company go bankrupt.

My worries were soon answered by my very emotional secretary running into the room with a basket of carrots.

"Please tell me you're just frantic because our stocks suddenly went through the roof," I said with a somewhat worried expression while my secretary proceeded to lay the basket of carrots in front of the genius.

"No…, but the rest of the corporations in France took a massive hit to their stocks all of a sudden. At this point, many of our possible contenders that would have done small upgrades to the Custom series are going to go under. The Dunois Corporation was the only one with enough resources to survive the sudden drop," she said frantically.

"I see… Thank you for the update. Please go check on Mother," I said with a gulp.

This wasn't what I had been hoping for at all. I should have known that such an outcome was a possibility give how flippant and whimsical the genius was. She didn't even seem to care too much about what she had done either. Here we were with the nation going into chaos, and the source of the problem was just digging into the basket of carrots as if nothing happened. Did she even care about what she had just done?

"Now you should be getting all of the I.S. development funding that the government can give you," she said with a chipper tone.

"What's your game Professor?" I asked hesitantly.

"What do you mean?"

"Why do you care about Ichika so much? You may have just destroyed a nation and the lives of thousands just to protect him. Why go to such extents just so that he won't be insinuated to have affiliations with us?"

"To name a few, my little sister likes him, he's Chi-chan's precious little brother, he's like my little brother…," she said with a smile while counting her reasons on her fingers.

"So in short, he actually means something in your world," I said after having to listen to her ramble on and on about how precious her little circle was to her.

"Exactly!"

At least her reasons weren't beyond my grasp of understanding. I could at least fathom the idea of doing anything to protect those precious to me. I did have Mother to look after. I had known those sentiments when I had first found out about Charlotte.

What the Professor did was still unforgivable though, but there wasn't too much I could do about it without going under myself. The most I could do was ruffle her feathers, which I intended to do at the very least. The only question was when and how. She was undisputedly the smartest person on this planet, and clearly would show no remorse or have any hesitation in removing me if I pissed her off. The very idea in simply challenging her seemed absurd, but being absurd really was the only way to challenge her in the first place.

"How are the repairs for the Byakushiki going?" I asked as tried to scrape together whatever material I could for my upcoming prank.

"They're done," the woman said with a smile as she procured the white ring containing the core.

The moment I saw the ring, my mind started to think of an interesting way to get back at the mad scientist.

"Do you want us to deliver the ring to the Ichika for you?"

The rabbit gave me a questionable look over my words. Why wouldn't she? We had just been discussing the fact that Ichika needed a core that didn't belong to any one nation. The very idea of us handing over the core to the Ichika seemed to be contradictory to this goal.

I continued by reasoning, "Wouldn't Ichika have more attention if the one and only creator of the I.S. suddenly appeared to give him a core? It would be much less troublesome for him to just receive a core from a corporation that was just trying to get on his good side."

"Aye, that is true. But tell me this, what would make you so special for Ichika to accept France's gift above any other nation's?" she asked with a sly smile.

"Because that is the core that his sister used. It holds sentimental value to the boy, and it is the first core you ever built. People wouldn't think too much into the idea of Ichika accepting the core given its value and who he is. Everyone would just think that Ichika was just taking something that is rightfully his. Plus, we are simply presenting him a core that we no longer own."

"… Oh you really are as fun as Ichika says you are. Keep that up, and I may just remember you face for later," she said while giving a hysterical laugh.

With that, she tossed me the ring and disappeared in thin air. She had left her carrot chip in the room though, which just made me wonder only one thing. Why did she even use the carrot to burst through the roof if she could teleport just like that?

Screw it. She was Tabane Shinonono and that was all I needed to know.

* * *

"Charlotte, your debut for I.S. Academy has been delayed. Due to some unforeseen circumstances, we will require your presence at the company until we can find replacements for the pilots who quit from the stock market scare earlier this afternoon," I sighed as I recalled how much damage the corporation had suffered.

Had I known that the Professor was going to cripple France's strength, I would never have tried to push for a better bargain. I had even taken a really stupid risk just to get back at her with a small prank, which she seemed to have more or less figured out. It was probably sheer dumb luck that the whimsical genius decided to keep the company from collapsing like the rest of our ex-competitors.

"I see," my half-sister said rather sadly.

"Don't look so down, I have something interesting I want you to deliver to Ichika and his sister," I said with a small smile on my lips as I handed her two items.

"I understand what the ring is for, but why the camera?"

"I want Ms. Orimura to film the moment when you present the Byakushiki to Ichika during your introduction."

"…"

"Do it or you're not going to I.S. academy at all," I said sternly.

Author's Notes

#1: For the most part these notes will just be here to clarify some things that may not have been so obvious while reading. Please favorite and follow if you liked this story. Also send reviews of things you liked or disliked so that I can try to improve the work. Send questions and I will probably respond to some of them in the next chapter.


	11. Chapter 11

Disclaimer: I do not own I.S. and no copyright infringement is intended.

"Speaking/Reading"

Ichika's Perspective

"A student transferred into class two?"

I had just heard the news that a new student had shown up over the weekend. I had originally thought the rumors were about Charlotte, but after hearing which class the new girl was in, I had my doubts as to who it was. Knowing the circumstances, it was likely that Charlotte would have been placed in my class. Since it was in another class, it couldn't have been her.

"Yes Ichika, and I hear that she took over the role as class representative for class two. The rumors say that she is a Candidate Representative from China with a personal unit," Cecilia chimed in.

"Strange… I thought owning a personal unit was supposed to be exceptionally rare given the limited amount of cores. Why exactly are there so many pilots with cores in the freshman year?" I asked while mentally counting at least four freshmen with their own units.

"That simply indicates just how strong this year's batch is… right?" another girl stated.

"You mean the entire generation or the pilots?" I asked jokingly.

I had my doubts to that theory. While I couldn't say for sure for Cecilia, I didn't believe that the current number of personal I.S. pilots had to do with how skilled all of the pilots were. I actually couldn't say anything for any of the freshmen since I had never witnessed anyone else fight in any official match, but I had an inkling that the numbers were attributed to the current developmental stages that most countries were in for their third-generation frames.

"Are you going to be okay for the upcoming interclass tournament?" another girl asked.

"What do you mean?"

"Well… We know that you can pilot very well, but you're still going up against a Candidate Representative that you know nothing about. The only thing we have been hearing about her is how she has taken the position as class representative by force. It might be a challenge for you since you don't have a personal I.S. to use," a third girl asked with concern.

"Are you concern about my pride or the free desert tickets?" I asked with a brow raised.

"The tickets of course!" everyone said with several laughs over how I thought that they were concerned about my pride.

"Figures, but I know enough about the new student to prepare," I sighed out.

Of course most of the girls would be more concerned about the free desert than showing off the class's strength. The only people who probably even cared about the glory and prestige were probably Cecilia, Houki and me. Okay maybe not me. I did lose to Tatenashi in an official match.

"Quite the confidence you have there, but even if you aren't facing the strongest student, you still are taking on a third-generation suit. How exactly are you going to take down this new pilot," Cecilia asked with an expression brimming with curiosity.

I knew Cecilia had seen me mess with the safety features of the core, and she had probably been informed by Chifuyu-nee never to do something as stupid as what I had done. From that, I could guess that Cecilia wasn't asking how I was going to modify the suit. She was probably asking how I would do in a fight during which my specs were restrained to the standard models.

"I'm going to use the suit against her," I said nonchalantly.

"Do explain, I'm sure everyone her is dying to know what makes you so confident that you will win against this monster," Cecilia asked with an interested smile.

"Based on the rumors, we know that the pilot is from China with a personal unit. Because of that, I can assume that she will be using the Shenlong for the match when I face her. While the Shenlong does have the best specs in the third-generation race as of the moment, it doesn't actually have too many ways to defend itself. For example, the unit only has two pressure cannons and two large scimitars that can act as boomerangs. Because of this, it makes the Shenlong strictly a suit for close quarters combat and maybe a little midrange at best. I could list several other details, but it'll probably bore most of you."

Though I was essentially bashing the Shenlong's capabilities, it was not my actual intention. It was by no means an inferior machine. In fact, the model was actually quite good. It was just that the Shenlong, like a few second-generation and many third-generation models, suffered from a very specific problem. Suits were simply too specialized. The models would only work in certain circumstances, and they would consequently fail when matched with some other suits.

This flaw was to be expected though since the third-generation models were just rolling out. The current focus was on specs and anti-I.S. designs. It was really a balance between narrow tactics and convoluted fighting methods. Both were simply just unwieldy at this point. This was also one of the reasons why I was currently stuck in designing my I.S. for Taba-nee.

"Seems you did your homework, Ichika!" a confident voice echoed from the doorway.

Everyone looked to see what had to be the new student. I saw my childhood friend.

"Longtime no see, Rin," I said with a smile.

"Says the guy who virtually disappeared for the last couple of years. But yeah, longtime no see. Too bad the first thing that I hear after not seeing you for so long is smack talk about my unit," she said energetically.

"But you know that I'm praising you inside my head right?"

"Something about how the other models suffer similar flaws?" she said with one brow raised.

Was it just me, or did people seem to know what I was thinking more and more? I didn't mind it too much when my sister or Taba-nee were able to do so, but that's because they aren't exactly in the same category with most other people. I had started to notice that Houki was able to read some of my thought, while I was still incapable of immersing myself in the nonverbal conversation. Now all of a sudden, Rin showed up and was able to read my mind right off the bat.

In any case, it was nice to finally see Rin again. After I had to move in with Taba-nee, I was only able to see my friends when they came over for the weekend. This sparse time was further reduced when I had to train in everything I.S. related for the past two years. I had pretty much up and left the world at that point, but it was to be expected since I was made aware that a terrorist organization wanted me.

"Isn't it quite rude for someone to barge into another class without introducing oneself?" Cecilia asked with an amused expression over the unexpected reunion.

"Who are you anyway?" Houki asked with some hostility.

"I'm_" Rin tried to say before a clipboard whacked her on the back of the head.

"Get back to your class," my sister said in an authoritative voice.

Unfortunately for Rin, she didn't realize who had whacked her. The hit had disoriented her and enraged her. If it was against anyone else, I would have just said go for it. Too bad it was my sister that she had to deal with.

"And who do you… Chifuyu_" Rin said in fear once the reality kicked in.

"It's Ms. Orimura when we are on school. Now get back to your class before I have to punish you for disrupting my class," Chifuyu-nee said in an ominous tone.

Without even waiting for Chifuyu-nee's clipboard to appear once more, Rin sprinted out of the room as though death was after her. It wasn't too far a stretch from reality, and I could sympathize with Rin's fear. Chifuyu-nee was just too strong, and she could turn anything into a deadly weapon.

I also knew that Rin was going to come back and blame me for getting hit. She always did have a habit in blaming others for anything that didn't go her way. The question was if I was even going to hear what she would have to say. All of the girls in my class were bound to ask who she was, and most were probably going to start some rumors. I could already tell that they were doing so at the very moment.

* * *

Cecilia's Perspective

What was this? Ichika was already acquainted with a Candidate Representative? Just exactly what have you been doing when you were still hidden from the spotlight to be so immersed in the I.S. world? There was no way that you could have just gotten yourself so deep just because you are the Brunhilde's little brother.

"Class is dismissed," the teacher said loudly and broke my train of thought.

As soon as she left, a whole swarm of students began to surround the boy. It was to be expected given the fact that Ichika seemed to have personally knew the new student. But still, did these girls ever get tired hounding the boy over some silly gossip material? It was amusing at first, but it started to get annoying since it prevented me from actually having a normal discussion. I also needed to talk to him privately, but I could never find any private time between the two of us.

I honestly didn't know if Ichika was lucky or not. On one hand, he was surrounded by several high class ladies, but on the other hand, there was only one of him. I could only imagine how tiring it was to have to deal with so much chaos every day.

To his fortune or misfortune, the transfer student came over demanding his presence for dinner. This definitely fueled several stories about her being his lover, but it silenced the crowd at the very least.

After acquiescing to her demands, everyone went to the cafeteria to listen to whatever history the two had. I didn't however. Ichika probably didn't need me to just fill in another seat given how many were following him. Besides, Chelsea was finally giving me a call concerning the information that I had asked about a week ago.

"Hello, did you find anything out?" I asked eagerly.

"There wasn't too much that I could dig up milady. A lot of the information seemed sound in terms of the statistics and damages. There were a couple of things that seemed off, but I could not look any deeper into those. I was only really able to find one interesting bit of information."

"Continue."

"It seems that a certain business transaction was supposed to occur on the same day that the Dunois Corporation was attacked. Supposedly the company was supposed to receive Core-Zero-Zero-One, but the reasons as to why are unconfirmed."

"The first core, but that originally belonged to Ms. Orimura. Why would anyone hand over such a valuable core to the Dunois Corporation?"

It didn't even matter which core was presented to the Dunois Corporation. Regardless of their position and how it was faring, an additional core was far too excessive for anything. There was a limited amount of these devastating weapons, and just one more could tip the balance greatly. It didn't make sense to present a core to a flourishing company, and it made even less sense as to why they would receive the core that started it all.

"As I have stated milady, the reasons are still unconfirmed. I also believe that Ms. Orimura and her brother were present during the Phantom Task raid."

"It's what I thought, but what makes you say that Ichika was at the scene?" I asked curiously in order to collect as much facts as possible.

"There were several records indicating that a fair sum of resources was spent in preparation for the day, and more than just for a fancy banquet. Judging from the expense, I believe that a large demonstration was put on. Since the Brunhilde has no need to purchase a suit and has sided with the Japanese government, it is very unlikely that the presentation was for her. Because of that, I can only assume that it was for your classmate," Chelsea said with a smug tone developing in her tone.

"Is it possible that Phantom Task was after Ichika and not the core in particular?" I asked.

"I have my doubts, but it's not impossible. There were several records concerning the damages that the building sustained. Based on some of the reports, there were several adjacent corridors in which the floor was scorched. The singeing indicated that the gun was pointed at the legs, or nonfatal targets. Whoever the shooter was, she was chasing someone and not trying to kill them. I would guess that there was at least someone in the building that they wanted to keep alive, but who it was, I can't figure out," Chelsea said with a hum as she speculated all the possibilities.

There was one thing that bothered me though. Chelsea had mentioned shots that had scorched the floor, which indicated beam weaponry. This was an inconsistency in that I did not recall of any of the captured frames having such weapons on them.

"Chelsea, what were the models of all the Phantom Task suits that were captured and what were the causes of death for all seven pilots?"

"Milady?" Chelsea asked with a concerned tone.

"It seems that in researching the new idol, we may have caught onto something important regarding you know what," I whispered.

"That? Are you certain?" Chelsea asked with an alarmed tone.

"I still need more information, but if the situation is as bad as I think it is, then we need to recover it as soon as possible."

"Understood milady, I'll call again once I gather the requested information."

This was really bad if my suspicions were true. Was it possible that Phantom Task had managed to get a hold of the Silent Zephyrs? The higher ups claimed that the plans were simply molded into the Blue Tears, but records of the core were essentially hidden behind red tape. Why would the government ever want to admit to losing a core, which represented the country's military power? Why would they ever admit to having a core they own to have fallen into the hands of a terrorist organization? There would be no reason for them to reveal such a fact, but that made it difficult to retrieve a core back.

"Phantom Task… How fitting of a name for this group," I said quietly before proceeding to the arena to practice using the Blue Tears.

* * *

Ichika's Perspective

"Working hard this evening as well?" I asked a bespectacled girl in the I.S. development lab on campus.

I usually came to this hangar every day after sparring with Houki, but due to all the fuss with Rin showing up, I just didn't have the energy to fight today. I also had another reason as to why I didn't want to spar with Houki for the day.

"Yes… You?" Kanzashi replied quietly while keeping her eye on me as I walked to a free bench.

"Yeah."

And with that, our conversation ended. There really wasn't too much to talk about since we were both busy doing our work. I didn't even have anything to talk about since I really had no idea how to continue the conversation, and she didn't continue because she was too shy.

Back to work. I managed to overcome the specs of my design using the free and class time I had throughout the week I had been here. While many would have been impressed with the amount of progress I made, it wasn't good enough. All I had really done in the week was rediscover how to build the Shenlong, but with an even more limited armory to use. It was honestly worse than the Shenlong. There was also the fact that what I wanted to make didn't have the specs that could only be met when using specific packets.

The increase in specs had forced me to increase the safety precautions, which took up more storage than I had hoped. I had even lowered the maximum shield energy down to four hundred to compensate for the specs. This was the problem that I saw in many high performance frames, and I had fallen right for the same trap. I made a good close quarter combat machine, but that was it. It was honesty frustrating to have made such a stereotypical machine.

"Guess I gotta start from scratch again," I mumbled before saving the design in my failed designs folder for future reference.

Making an all around high spec machine was no good. Maybe making a machine that focused on the armory was a better approach to the situation. If the pilot had a lot of tools at her disposal, it would give her the tools to manage all situations. It was a start at least, but the only problem that I foresaw in the current direction of my project was the frame simply being to taxing on the pilot. The need to memorize all of the weapons and the amount of ammo was simply a large strain.

I was probably going about the situation the wrong way. It was probably in my best interest to work on increasing the storage and processing abilities. The problem that I kept running into usually stemmed from the core's capacity to store information. If I could raise the limit, I would be able to bypass many of the problems that I was facing.

"Uhm… What are you trying to make? You've been making a lot of blueprints, but you always seem to scrap them," a nervous voice called out from behind.

Looking back, I saw the blue haired girl watching from across the room. She had apparently stopped working on her I.S. to watch what I had been doing. It probably wasn't obvious as to what I was trying to do since I really hadn't done anything for a week.

"Trying to design an I.S. that can excel in all situations," I responded nicely.

"What? But how?"

"I'm still trying to figure that out. What about you?"

"Me?" she asked with a hint of wariness.

"What are you working on? You've been here since the start of the semester."

"I'm… trying to construct my personal I.S.," she said with a noticeable blush.

"Building one? What are you using as the base?" I asked curiously.

"The Uchigane…" she mumbled.

"Are you a Candidate Representative for Japan?"

"Yes…"

"Are you class representative for class four?" despite knowing the answer.

"Yes… But how did you know?" she asked with a blush over how much I was gathering about her.

"Oh you know. Rumors and gossip tend to be very effective means to get information, albeit a bit misinformative every now and then," I said with a nervous chuckle.

It was honestly hard to keep the conversation going. I honestly felt as though I were talking to a wall or a mirror due to how little feedback I was receiving from my peer. Her cautious attitude didn't help with the situation either. It was as though she thought I would pounce on her given the chance. Her nervousness made me wonder what rumors were floating around about me.

In any case, I was finding it hard to believe that I was meeting with so many Candidate Representatives. The sheer number, though would have obviously been inflated in I.S. Academy, was far too large to be simple coincidence. It made me suspect that the government's surrounding the world had decided to put so many in school this year to possibly get more information from me or draw me towards their country.

I gritted my teeth as I thought more about my situation. In my future, was it even possible for me to ever have a normal life anymore? Even if I defeated Phantom Task, I would still be the only male pilot in the world. Unless that fact changed, my life and every action that I would make would be noticed by the whole world. Even if I wasn't the only male pilot later on, I was still the first. That fact still meant something. I wasn't even over thinking about it since Taba-nee and Chifuyu-nee were both prime examples of my worries.

"Is everything okay, Ichika?" the shy girl asked me.

After snapping back to reality, I noticed that my frustration had started to come forth in the real world. My hands, which had been previously tapping away at my holographic screen, were now tightened into fists. Several of the codes that I had been typing were distorted without me having realized it. It was only fortunate that I had started over so none of the data that I had messed up mattered.

"Yeah… I was just thinking about how my life is going to be after high school… I think I'm going to just turn in early for the day," I said with a straight face in an attempt to cast away any worry that this girl had or would have of me.

I honestly didn't want to think about such things, and especially not when I was going to work on my first I.S. suit. But how could I not think about it? Houki had sprung such an important question on me earlier, and that was all that was needed to cloud my mind.

I needed to clear my head. These next few years were the last remaining years that I would be able to live a relatively carefree life. I didn't want to make the experience sour with such topics even though I knew that I would have to confront my fears sooner or later.

As I left the room, I was confronted by my second childhood friend.

* * *

Rin's Perspective

"So this is where you spend your time. I thought for sure you would have been in the arena instead," I said when I finally found Ichika.

"I kind of don't have an I.S. to use, plus I have to do some work for you know who," the boy said with a depressed shrug.

I had heard the details of the match from both him and the rumors surrounding the incident, and I also knew who he meant when he referred to her. He had dropped out of school once he found himself that crazy teacher, but he certainly found a good one. No else could boast to have been taught by Professor Shinonono other than him.

In any case, it had surprised me that Ichika had challenged a true Representative to a fight, but it was definitely well within what Ichika would have done. He was always competitive and loved everything concerning the I.S., but his competitiveness was what stuck to me the most. I could distinctly recall how often the two of us had eating and cooking contests. It was sad to say though, but Ichika usually was a better cook than I was despite the fact that my parents had owned a restaurant before Ichika had all but disappeared.

"Why are you so down? You're finally able to see one of childhood friends again."

"It's nothing much. I was just a bit concerned about my future," he said in uncharacteristically glum tone.

"Come with me for a second," I said as I started to drag Ichika along.

He was far too depressed for some reason. I didn't know why he was, but he needed to stop being such a downer. This wasn't like Ichika, and I had to snap him back into it. There was only one way I knew how, and that was to get his competitive nature front and center.

As we marched on, we passed a few girls who started to murmur about why I was dragging the boy along. I didn't care because I was already immune to all forms of gossip be they good or bad. My skin and heart had become numb to such distractions, and I only had Ichika to thank for that. Though I have to say, for someone who had taught someone to be thick-skinned, he still seemed to take great concern in such rumors. He was stuttering about some nonsense that I might be in a world of problems with rumors if I kept on dragging him about.

"Get your act together, Ichika. You and I are going to have some fun!" I called back to the confused boy.

After a few minutes, we reached a cafeteria that was located near the development center. In there, a couple of the staff objected when I barged into the room. I didn't care about their objections and just asked them to be our judge for the match. At first everyone, including Ichika, just gave a confused look about what I was talking about. It was slightly frustrating that everyone seemed a tad bit slow, but restrained my frustration and told them that I was going to have a cooking battle with Ichika.

"What?" Ichika asked with a confused expression that was no longer filled with the sadness he had before.

"You and I are having a cooking match for old time's sake," I said while tossing him a pan.

Even though he was still shocked by the sudden turn of events, he caught the object with ease. After getting back up, he had his old smile back.

"What's on the menu this time?"

"Sweet and sour pork, and don't you dare think of adding pineapples like last time!"

"But it tastes good with pineapple."

"Just use something else," I called out as we started the preparing the meat.

Author's Notes

#1: For the most part these notes will just be here to clarify some things that may not have been so obvious while reading. Please favorite and follow if you liked this story. Also send reviews of things you liked or disliked so that I can try to improve the work. Send questions and I will probably respond to some of them in the next chapter.

#2: To W: I looked back and corrected to some errors that were pointed out. As for the whole thing about Ichika not wanting a relationship due to politics, it's in the story because it does show some plausible issues that I think will be interesting to write around later. I also don't want this fiction to be a harem one simply because I find it difficult to write such stories. It's easier for me to write single pairings, and as a result it may seem that there is one particularly strong pairing at any moment.


	12. Chapter 12

Disclaimer: I do not own I.S. and no copyright infringement is intended.

"Speaking/Reading"

Ichika's Perspective

"You really know how to cook you know that?" Rin said as we were eating the remaining sweet and sour pork from the competition.

"Says the person who won, but I have to admit, your cooking got a lot better. I didn't even stand a chance this time. Have you been practicing while I've been gone?"

"Of course you idiot. My parents owned a restaurant, and I had to help around a lot. I even had to settle with competing with Dan just to see if I was getting better," she said as she lightly jabbed my arm.

"But Dan owns a restaurant as well. Wouldn't his cooking be more of a challenge than mine?"

"You know as well as I do that you are the better cook," she laughed.

"How is Dan by the way? Still getting bossed around by his little sister?"

"Aren't all brothers slaves to their sisters?"

With that, our conversation just revolved around some small talk. It was a nice change of pace. I wasn't just thinking that because I had been down earlier. It was really nice to just sit on the roof and watch the sunset with a good meal. The setting just helped make all my worries disappear even if for just this moment.

"Thanks…" I said softly as I continued to just relax.

"Don't go all soft on me you blubbering idiot."

"Seriously… I needed the change of pace."

"From the hordes of girls trying to get your number," she snickered.

"Would you want a horde of guys to swarm you just because you're the only girl for miles around?"

"Point taken, but in any case, why were you so down earlier? You usually were never like that unless it was something really bad happened," Rin asked with concern.

She was right in that I normally wasn't the type to be depressed, or at least not when I was around other people. At least I thought I was able to hide it well. I could never tell how much of my emotions were able to bleed through my face when dealing with people that just seemed to know what I was thinking.

"If you really want to know, I was just a tad bit concerned about where my life was going," I said as I realized that Rin was going to find out eventually since she knew me well enough.

"Let me guess, you're worried about whatever forced you to have to disappear for the past two years and the fact that you are the only male pilot," Rin said rather quickly.

"Okay… Are you able to read my mind or something? That was a little too accurate to just be guessing."

"What else would you have been worried about? Those two things are the only things that would come to my mind because it's what I'm worried about."

"… I guess that makes sense," I said while gingerly scratching my head.

She had a point in that those two things were really the only things I should have been too worried about at this point in time. Other than being related to two of the most renowned people in the world, I was pretty much just a normal guy. Of course the only things I would be worried about would be the things that would endanger my future happiness. I did have other worries, but none of them seemed too big in the whole scope of things.

"Look, Ichika. I may not know all the details about your situation, but get over it."

"Rin?"

"It's okay to think about the future, but you shouldn't forget to enjoy the time you have now. I mean you don't even know if your worries will even come true. For all you know, you could just be over thinking the whole issue."

"I'm not exactly in a position to just leave things be at the moment," I said with one brow raised.

"Then just do what you need to do. Just don't fret about useless things like being unable to do what you want in the future just because the world is watching you," Rin responded angrily.

"You must be an esper if you can read me like that," I said with a disconcerted tone.

How exactly was she narrowing down what had been bothering me when she was really the only one talking? The conversation had changed from simply being about the future, to what I was a bit more worried about, and then to what I feared I would never be able to overcome. Was she just able to read my mind, or was she speaking at something else? I didn't want to think about it because I had already gone through that with Houki, and I couldn't wave off the awkward atmosphere I got around her. I didn't want that kind of situation with Rin either.

"If only you…" she mumbled before loudly saying, "You shouldn't give a damn about what the world thinks. You should only care about those close to you. Remember? You told me that."

Now that I thought about it, I did recall saying something similar to Rin. It was sort of how we even became friends, though I didn't think that she would have taken my words to heart or use it in this context. But then again, it was really the first conversation I had with her and she had with anyone in our school. A few of the kids had been bullying her for her nationality, and the rest of the students were too scared of getting into the fray to help. If remembered correctly, I was the first to lend a hand. I wasn't too sure because my sister had hit my head as punishment for getting in a fight.

"The world is kind of a lot bigger than a couple of schoolyard bullies," I said with a slightly exasperated tone.

"Yeah, so there should be a bunch of idiots like you that lend you a hand when you need it. There's already one here sitting right next to you," Rin said while slapping my back as a means to tell me that I wasn't alone.

It was comforting to know that someone had my back. Even though it was just one more person, it suddenly felt as though my concerns were slowly melting away. I didn't know why since it was the weight of one to a few people against the remainder of the world, many of whom had far more power in their grasp. Was this how Rin felt when I helped her out back then?

"Thanks… I really needed the pep talk," I said sheepishly after contemplating Rin's words for a while.

"Just returning the favor idiot," she said with a smile before lying down on the roof.

After that, we continued eating the sweet and sour pork that we had made while watching the red sun drop lower and lower. As it got darker, we started to notice several blue flashes coming from one of the arenas. It seemed as though someone was training hard for some reason or another. As we watched the blue streaks whiz through the air, something came up to mind.

"You ready for the interclass tournament Rin?"

"I'm still testing out the Shenlong's capabilities, but I'll probably win."

"That's quite the statement you just said. Care to explain why you think you can beat me?"

"Because I'm just that great of a pilot," she sneered.

"That sounds like a challenge."

"Loser has to do one thing that the winner wants?"

"Fine by me," I said with a smile before hooking my pinky with hers.

* * *

Madoka's Perspective

"So what is the current progress with all of our current projects, M?"

"The golem will be ready by the end of the week, which should just be in time for Ichika's interclass tournament. We have also identified several interesting third-generation models that could be of great use to the organization; the two most interesting being the Silver Gospel and Schwarzer Regen. Here are the specs, weapons and pilots of the two."

Mother was soon looking over the documents while examining all the details surrounding the potential targets. While the Silver Gospel was more of a profitable prize to acquire for the organization, I had pointed out the Schwarzer Regen for a different reason.

"The Schwarzer Regen… Pilot is Laura Bodewig, and she's a tank bred solider that will be transferring to I.S. Academy. Good work M. Tell the scientists to install the Valkyrie Trace System into her suit. The data could be useful for our future plans."

"Yes, Mother."

I had suspected that Mother would have been interested in such data. Why wouldn't she? She already had a large pool of resources at her disposal and hated the incompetent. If the Valkyrie Trace System were to work perfectly, she would be able to cut off the weak from the organization. Mother would have an army of the strongest under her disposal, and while it excited me, it also scared me.

I was confident in my abilities, but not a fool. I knew my limits; I knew that I wasn't a match for the strongest. I wasn't a match for Chifuyu should she be out for blood. If the plan were to succeed as soon as this year, I could find myself in quite the predicament. It wasn't just an unsettling fear, but a reality. After all, I was just a replacement for Chifuyu in the first place.

"Before you go M, is there any news regarding our constituent in the Dunois Corporation? I checked our records and our funding seemed to be a little short this time around."

"Haven't you heard the news? All of the I.S. developers in France suffered a major setback, and they are all currently trying to get back on their feet. Only the Dunois Corporation survived the stock market crash, but they still suffered quite a loss," I said without too much care as I flipped through the notes I had gathered.

"The whole country?" Mother asked without any form of surprise manifesting in her voice or face.

"I'm actually quite surprised that the country did not collapse, but they did receive quite a bountiful profit in sales early this year from winning last year's Mondo Grosso."

"Is that what you really think child?"

"You know that I know who was responsible for the crisis."

There wasn't anyone else who could have pulled off a stunt and still ensure that the country would have been able to survive. The question was if Tabane had done so knowing that it would have affected us as a result. Fuck it. It was the goddamn Professor. Of course she must have known that someone in the Dunois Corporation was working with us. If she hadn't had the idea, she wouldn't have hit one of our major constituents. She may have come off as a naïve child, but she really was aware of the effects of her actions.

"Please use caution when investigating more about the Silver Gospel and implanting the Valkyrie Trace System into the Schwarzer Regen. It will be difficult enough to succeed, but having little Tabane interfere will make it impossible to succeed" Mother stated with a serious tone.

"It may already be too late for that you know," I said playfully.

"Please take this more seriously. I would hate to have to lose another one of my precious children."

"That would have meant something if I were precious to you," I grumbled before walking out of the room.

As I walked further away, I could hear the soft echo of laughter. It didn't hurt since I knew that Mother only cared about four people in the world. I was almost on the verge of laughing myself since two of those she had held precious had betrayed her and were hunting her down while the other two were either comatose or training to defeat her.

As I was walking to the communication room to contact our German spy, I found myself next to the cold storage where Ni-ni was being held. Since I was in no hurry, I walked into the chilled room and saw several tanks of what remained of several failed experiments. Many were gruesome to see, but I had become accustomed to such sights since I had been raised to inflict a much worse fate on our enemies. The only experiment that was still somewhat alive was floating in a capsule at the back.

When I got close enough to touch the tank, I wiped away the fog on the glass to saw the remains of a man that was struggling to survive. It was honestly a miracle that Ni-ni was still able to survive give his current condition. He wasn't even a whole person to begin with. Ni-ni was just several parts of a human being that were floating about the tank and twitching to the responses that his brain attempted to send. He probably didn't even have nay blood left in his body since all of the veins were exposed to the tank's fluids. His will to survive was simply astounding, but I guess that might have been hereditary in our family.

"Evening, how are you doing?" I said gently as I touched the glass close to where one of his hands was floating about.

In response, the hand seemed to twitch and drift towards the side. It was the only form of communication that we really had besides his garbled speech, but I couldn't expect him to be able to speak at all. Even if his jaw was completely connected and was able to function, the fluids would have made it impossible for him to say anything sensible.

"Mother seems to have all but given up on you, but she's Mother. She always leaves behind those she deems unworthy. Don't give me that look Ni-ni. I won't abandon you like she has. I even asked the surgeon lady to try to fix you up since she had nothing better to do."

As much as I enjoyed the suffering of others, I couldn't help but feel somewhat connected with Ni-ni. Unlike the people I wanted to kill, I still had this strange need to care for this failure. I wasn't sure why though. He was just a failure and was like the rest of the disposable grunts we had. The only reason why I felt any need to look out for him was probably due to the fact that it could have just as easily been me in that tank.

I continued by saying, "Mother wants to dispose of you, but if you can move an I.S., she won't do that. You'll probably be stuck as a research subject, but it's probably better than just becoming garbage. You'd probably agree with me since you haven't given up yet. Don't worry too much. Alice will come fix you up soon. I promise."

With that, my hand parted from the cold glass. The man in the tank gave a small shudder, and a few of his fingers scratched against the tank's glass as if trying to call me back. I wouldn't have doubted it if that were the case since he was stuck in a room of corpses all alone whenever I wasn't there.

As I proceeded to leave the cold storage, I saw Alice standing by the entrance watching my small moment with Ni-ni.

"Oh how sweet. Little M&M was looking after her little brother," she said with a sickly sweet tone.

"Don't call me that Mad Hatter."

"Oh don't be like that. I'm Aunty Alice," the surgeon said while whipping out a scalpel.

I really hated this woman, but she really knew what she was doing. She was cruel, but it wouldn't have been as bad if that were it. Everyone in this organization, including myself, was cruel and crazy to some degree. Alice was exceptionally bad in that she didn't understand the atrocities that she committed during her operations. It was because she was like a child that scared most of us should we ever had to get on her operating table.

If it weren't for her ability to reconstruct humans to a whole new level, we would have just left her for dead every time one of her patients blew her brains out. I still even questioned the idea of keeping her alive just because she was that dangerous. The only reason why I didn't kill her myself was because Mother wanted her alive and had the power to keep her in check.

"So how are you going to fix Ni-ni?" I asked without so much as flinching from Alice's scalpel.

I had to know. Alice, despite being a genius at what she did, was still unable to piece Ni-ni back together. Her failure to do so was the reason as to why he was in the tank in the first place. Despite that, she claimed that she could make him better than Ichi-ni-san was.

"Well your little brother is like Humpty Dumpty in that he can't be put together again, but I have been dying to remake him using the I.S. deployment capabilities, though I wanted to test it out on the little girl first to make sure it would at least not break my dolls," she said with a childish pout.

"You're going to graft the core onto a boy who can't even activate an I.S.?" I asked skeptically as mentally tried to question her sanity.

"It's just like replacing a heart. How hard could it be?"

I could understand where she was coming from in terms of why the operation would work. Ni-ni was related to us, so he should have the genes to activate the I.S. even if he wasn't able to do so yet. Cores also had the capabilities of restoring some things like the frames while they were in storage. This meant that no matter how badly Ni-ni was hurt, he would have been able to fix himself right up given enough time in the core.

The only problem was how Alice was going to be able to make the operation work. It was the first of its kind and she was not known for ensuring that the first experiments would succeed. Ni-ni was also in such a sorry state that he could die at any moment even without what was probably going to be an agonizing operation.

"Just use anesthetics this time," I said firmly before returning to my work.

"Would little M&M like to play with me later on?"

"You so much as try to fucking touch me and I'll behead you like the Red Queen," I grumbled before hastening my pace.

It didn't matter how many times she died since she would have just been brought back anyways. I just didn't want to undergo any of her operations. Even if I was crazy and wished to get strong enough to defeat Chifuyu, I wasn't going to be put under the knife. I felt bad for Ni-ni, but it had to be done if he wanted to survive.

"Well that's enough about Ni-ni. I need to set my focus back on getting Ichi-ni-san over here or at least ready for whatever it is Mother plans to do with him."

Author's Notes

#1: For the most part these notes will just be here to clarify some things that may not have been so obvious while reading. Please favorite and follow if you liked this story. Also send reviews of things you liked or disliked so that I can try to improve the work. Send questions and I will probably respond to some of them in the next chapter.

#2: For those of you who want to read more about the action sequences, that will start again in the next chapter.


	13. Chapter 13

Disclaimer: I do not own I.S. and no copyright infringement is intended.

"Speaking/Reading"

Ichika's Perspective

Where was I? The image in front of my face was not the same as the roof of my room. Instead of the usual roof, my eyes were greeted by bright lights. My eyes darted about to see if there was anything else that I could register, but anything that was beyond my initial vision was completely wrapped in darkness.

I tried to get up, but felt the cold sting of metal touching my skin. I was clearly restrained on whatever I was laying on, but I did not panic over whether or not I was kidnapped. Instead, my mind became wrapped up in thoughts of how to escape. The quick transition from surprise to calmness was slightly disturbing in that it only showed that I must have gone through some pretty drastic situations to not have been too phased from my position.

After resolving to just pull my hands through the cuffs, I heard the humming. It sounded as though the notes were going along with some fairy tale rhyme. Though such things were normally comforting, the sound disturbed me greatly. I didn't know why, but the very nature of the song sounded so sinister to me.

Not only was the sound frightening, my body started to spasm. It was as though my body was physically responding to the humming. The spasms were soon accompanied with a sharp piercing sting. It felt that with each note, a sharp piercing pain developed in sections of my body. The intensity of the pain grew more and more with each additional painful pierce.

I tried to scream at a certain point, but I realized that my voice wasn't coming out. My mouth was gagged, and when I realized it, I felt myself start suffocating. Whatever had been gagging me had only started becoming a problem for me. How had I not noticed that I had been gagged? It didn't matter since the suffocating seemed minor in comparison to having all my nerves fire off signals of pain to my brain.

As my panic grew worse and worse, my vision was soon changing shape and color. What was once just darkness and one bright light became a crimson color. The singular circular object that had been in my field of vision began to contort into another shape. One of the sides of the circle soon caved in creating a crescent shape that grew thinner and thinner. The lights within the circle remained, but took on more rectangular shapes that remained in the new shape. Before I knew it, my eyes were greeted with the image of a cruel smile in a field of red that wavered like a fluid.

"You might not remember me, but I'll always remember how you were such a good patient," the voice softly cooed in my ear.

* * *

"Ichika! What's wrong?" a very concerned voice asked from my side.

Looking around, I found myself in my room at the dorms. To my left, Houki was standing by the bed with a concerned look in her eyes. Why was she so worried? Her concern made me look down. My body was completely drenched in sweat, and instead of lying down, I was sitting up vertically. It seemed that I had shot up from the bed as I had escaped from the nightmare.

"I'm okay… Just a really bad dream…" I gasped as I felt my stomach curdle from the lingering fear I had experienced in my nightmare.

Though I had done my best to brush away the reaction as just a bad dream, Houki did not seem convinced. I didn't see how I would have been able to convince her since I myself wouldn't have just let such a thing slide if I saw my current condition in her eyes. I believed my own acting even less since I had had this dream for several years now. It had been the first time since entering the school, but it still was a reoccurring dream. The problem was that this time had been worse than usual.

"I'm really_" I wasn't able to finish as the unsettling feeling in my stomach became too much for my bowels to hold in. With the sudden rush, I quickly dashed to the sink out hurl out whatever was still sitting in my stomach. My throat was then enveloped with a burning sensation and the air in my lungs was quickly expelled with my stomach's contents.

What a way to start a morning.

"Are you okay!?" Houki asked while patting my back to help with the vomit's flow.

"I told you… Just a really bad dream… I'll be fine soon," I said with a really weak tone.

"Bad enough to make you scream in pain?"

"Yeah…"

I had been screaming in pain? This shit was getting a bit too out of hand. I knew that those nightmares were bad and that this one in particular was pretty bad, but I never knew that the pain in my dreams sprung out in the real world.

What exactly had I gone through to have such a terrifying dream? I knew when and where I could have gotten the nightmares, but I didn't know what was causing it. It had to have been a terrible experience to still influence me now. I had wanted to ask Chifuyu-nee about the details, but I knew that she wouldn't have told me if I asked. Too many things about the situation had been out of place, but I didn't question it because Chifuyu-nee didn't seem to want to talk about it.

Other Chifuyu-nee, there was only one other person I could ask, but she wasn't here yet. I wasn't even sure if I wanted to ask Charlotte since I knew what was happening to me. For all I knew, Charlotte could have been suffering worse side effects. Both said that I had saved her, which could have meant that what I was suffering could have been light in comparison to what she could have endured. I didn't know, but the idea of bringing up bad memories didn't seem like the right thing to do.

"Do you want to take the day off? I'm not sure if you can even compete in the condition you're in," my childhood friend stated with concern.

I couldn't blame her. Not only did I have a screaming fit, I had vomited the first thing in the morning. Just looking at my image in the mirror, my face looked pale and my eyes looked fairly weak.

"I'll be fine. I can't just exactly back down from this tournament. Besides, it's just an I.S. fight not one of our sparring matches. How bad can it be?" I said with a weak smile.

"If you say so…"

"I'm really okay. I just need to get something to eat before the fight," I said while straightening myself up.

With that the discussion was over, but in the silence I could hear a lot of shuffling from outside the door. This was really bad if the people outside our door were who I thought they were. I guess it was just going to be another one of those days.

"Can you stay in the bathroom for a couple of minutes? I think I'm going to have to deal with some of the annoyances right outside of our door," I said with a still somewhat tired expression.

Houki just nodded and remained in the bathroom as I dressed and went to confront my second worst nightmare.

* * *

"I really hate reporters," I said as I saw how many of them were impatiently waiting in the stadium's seats.

"What's there to be so shy about? It's not any better than the hundreds of fan girls you amassed in the school," Cecilia said jokingly.

"I may do some pretty flashy stunts, but I just don't like the attention…" I grumbled.

It was annoyance that I had to deal with the school's news club, but now I had to deal with the paparazzi that would spread news throughout the globe like a wildfire. Normally I would have been joking around with some banter, but the dream from this morning had taken away most of my humor for the day. I tried, but it was honestly a bother at times. It was necessary though since I needed to settle down the butterflies in my stomach.

"You don't seem to be as chipper as usual. Bad experiences with the paparazzi?" Cecilia asked humorously.

"Is there ever a good one?" I responded in an attempt to get my spirits up, but to no avail.

"So are you ready for the match?"

"Don't have much of a choice but to be at this point. Anyways, why are you in the hangar? Isn't the view better from the seats?" I asked to sate my curiosity and to just change the pace of the conversation.

"It's more comfortable to be in here than next to all of those greedy politicians," she said with an annoyed humph sound.

"Oh right… You're part of the Alcott family."

"You've heard of my family?"

"No I haven't. But if anyone has to say your last name followed by the word family, then it must be important or wealthy," I said with a laugh, which received a light jab at my side.

"And here I was starting to think of you as a gentleman, but you're just a tease," she said with a laugh.

"Yes yes milady. Is there anyone in the stands that I should look out for?"

"Just try not to piss the Candidate Representative's officials. If you beat their pilots too badly, you might cause a stir," she said with a sly smile.

"Figures… Well then, I'll be off. Enjoy the show," I said enthusiastically before dashing out in an Uchigane through the opened gates.

As I passed through the gates, my entire screen became flooded with the image of several colors from the bustling stadium. While the lower stadium areas were mainly comprised of the colors red and white from all of the students' uniforms, the higher areas and boxed seats were filled with a multitude of colors from the varying suits that the officials in them wore.

There were also several flashes of lights as the news reporters that had managed to integrate themselves in the crowd were taking whatever pictures they could use on the front page. The only thing that crossed my mind when I saw those flashes was what they would put on their front pages. Were they going to come up with some insane theory that I would decide to be a Candidate Representative for Japan since I was using the Uchigane, or would they be more reasonable and just report the results of the match? It didn't really matter, but it was interesting trying to guess what they could possibly write since most of their material was going to be speculation anyways.

What really mattered though was the opponent hovering before me. In front of me floated an intimidating black and purple frame with several claw like spikes hooking from the feet and shoulders. There were also two bulbs with large spikes protruding from it, and each bulb had a large indentation. In this machine was my childhood friend Rin.

"Coming at me with the Uchigane? You wouldn't perhaps be looking down on me now would you?" Rin asked with a serious glare on her face.

It seemed that Rin's flip had been switched. She never was the type to play nice when things got serious, but I guess I could say the same for myself. We were both competitive in nature, and neither of us were the type to back down until the match was over.

"Sorry, but I'm planning on winning this tournament. You're just going to be the stepping stone I have to use," I responded with the same tone.

Even though I was openly challenging her, I had to use the Uchigane to win. Due to the Shenlong's close quarters fighting style, the Japanese training model was the only real viable option to fight off the frame should Rin have gotten too close. I was honestly questioning if I could win since I had never seen Rin pilot before.

"SO YOU SAY, BUT DON'T FORGET WHAT WILL HAPPEN WHEN YOU LOSE!"

Before I knew it, Rin had closed in the distance between us and had drawn one of her scimitars. The large blade, despite the obvious weight it had, was swung at a speed that forced me to use the Ignition Boost to escape from. I didn't completely escape the attack though as my barrier was activated when the blade came close to nicking my vital regions. Despite my surprise from the sudden attack, I materialized two grenades into the indented areas of her bulbs, which I had assumed to be the barrel of the pressure cannons.

As I made a vertical dash upwards to the ceiling to keep her cannons facing up and to keep the grenades sitting tight in the barrel, my sensors rang as they detected the cannon's activation. I forced the Uchigane to come to a complete halt, and used any remaining momentum I had to reorient the machine to face my opponent. I also materialized a sniper during the turn in order to fire distraction shots so that Rin wouldn't notice the grenades that I had planted.

Unfortunately for me, the scimitars of the Shenlong came flying at me with the two hilts connected. The attack missed me, but sliced the barrel of my sniper, leaving the gun completely useless. It was fortunate in that I escaped the attack, but I still needed her to fire the cannons. The problem was that I had lost the weapon that I had prepared in order to distract Rin from my plan. In order to get her to attack, I feigned being in a weak state and left several opening for her to take advantage of.

"I have you now!" Rin screamed before being engulfed in two devastating explosions that sent shrapnel flying in all directions.

With the duo of the explosions, I followed up by diving straight into the fumes with a shield pierce in one hand and a katana in the other. Several of the shrapnel bits that were flying out also damaged my shields as they collided with my barrier at high speeds. It would have been in my best interest in swerving around to reduce the damage and to get to Rin's blindside, but I didn't even bother trying to come from the sides since I knew Rin would have been able to recover from such a tactic very quickly. She probably even had a feeling that I would have attacked from the side since it was likely that she would have at least seen my match with Tatenashi.

As my sword made contact with an object, sparks flew out as metal clashed with metal. I hadn't activated her Absolute Barrier, which left me in a dangerous situation what with the Shenlong specializing in close range combat. I wasn't able to readjust my angle though since my momentum had carried me to a point in which I was positioned under Rin with only a few inches of air underneath our legs, and holding up the weight of her blade instead of forcing her to carry mine. The blade and the force the Shenlong was exerting was pushing my frame to extremes as some warning screens popped to indicate an excess in the load.

"Did you really think that would work on me?!" Rin yelled as the smoke cleared to reveal her second scimitar descend upon me.

"No, but that wasn't my main goal to begin with!"

In response to the impending attack, I raised my Gray Scale to take the brunt of the attack. While I was defending myself, I released the front part that was hiding the weapon. Inside the shield, a devastating weapon gleamed.

"Say goodbye to one of your Souten Gagetsu!"

With my yell, several things occurred consecutively. My weapon fired its spike and shattered the blade that was pinning me down, but the sudden loss of her weapon didn't stop Rin's attack. The second scimitar that she wielded quickly embedded itself into my shield and cause sparks to shoot off in all directions as the weapon dug deeper and deeper. The attack soon caused my shield points to drop, but I didn't leave it at that.

Before my shield points dropped below three hundred, I ejected the weapon and planted a grenade inside the gauntlet that had held it to my arm. I quickly performed a turn and the sudden lack of resistance had caused her scimitar to smash into the ground. This sudden shift in positions had left her exposed, and I took the opportunity to slash her blindsides. My blades were met with colorful polygons that prevented my attacks from harming Rin.

After slashing at her a few times, I used the Ignition Boost to escape the incoming explosion. Rin had also dislodged her only remaining weapon from the ground when I had just started dashing away, but failed to observe the grenade in the Gray Scale that had remained at the base of her feet. She didn't bother moving since she had assumed that I was fleeing from her backswing when she had managed to regain use of her weapon. This proved to be quite unfortunate for her as the bomb detonated with more shrapnel attacking her shields from below.

"How are you doing?" I called out with a small pant over how quickly the battle was escalating.

"How do you think!" a shout echoed from the smoke, which was quickly blown away with a swing from her scimitar.

The fight was insane in comparison to the fight with Tatenashi. Even if Rin was nowhere near the same level as Tatenashi, she was no pushover. The simple difference in the fighting experience really proved that Tatenashi had been holding back quite a bit and that there really was a massive gap in specs between generations. If it wasn't for the fact that I wasn't allowed to utilize the machine's maximum possible capabilities, the fight would have been a lot easier.

Looking at my shield points, I realized that I was down to half of my remaining shield points. I had lost quite a bit in the span of a minute or two. It wasn't even funny how much I had lost. What made it worse was that I had lost two of my three weapons and used up all of the grenades that I had brought for this match. The only consolation I had was that I had definitely done a significant amount of damage to Rin's unit and had removed all but one of her weapons.

"How are you doing on shield points?" I asked hesitantly to gauge what I had to do in order to win.

"About three hundred of the eight hundred I had to start with. You?" Rin said as she readied herself.

"About the same amount, but out of six hundred."

I dematerialized my blade, which confused Rin.

"What are you doing? Giving up?" she taunted cautiously.

"Not quite, but you can if you want. I know that you won't exactly get too much further in the competition with the damage the Shenlong has taken," I goaded with a cocky expression.

I needed to get a counterattack off of her. While three hundred points was still quite a bit to whittle down to zero, it was still possible to do so in one stream of consecutive attacks. But the same could be said about my situation in that if Rin smashed me once or twice with the Souten Gagetsu it would have been over. If I blindly charged in, I would have just been putting myself at risk.

"Not a chance! I'm going to get you to do whatever I want!" Rin said as she made a straightforward dash.

It was very familiar in that it was the exact same thing she had done in the beginning of the match. The only difference was that I was ready for her. Even if she had the better machine, I had the plan. I had the advantage since I knew what Rin and I were going to do while Rin still had to react to my attacks. I used the Ignition Boost to close the distance between us at speeds that only left enough reaction time for only the most trained and myself to utilize.

Within the span of time Rin when was left open, I redeployed my katana and made a quick slash. Before I was able to slash her for a second time though, her scimitar quickly came down upon me. But I didn't let it connect to my suit at all, and I blocked it with my katana. I also made sure to angle the blade so that it wouldn't have shattered upon impact and redirected the scimitar in a completely different direction.

Rin was left open once more, and I utilized her vulnerable state to attack from her back and whittle down her shields even further. My ears were soon greeted with the sounds of alarms blaring as the I.S. indicated that Rin's shields were getting close to zero. While many would have taken the sound as the time to celebrate, I activated my thrusters to shoot me up. This turned out to be the right decision as Rin had performed a quick spin that swept her massive blade around. If I had been on the ground still, it would have been unlikely for my shields to have survived the attack. I even had doubts that I would have gotten out completely unscathed from the attack.

"This is the end!" I cried before plunging my blade straight down through numerous multicolored polygons, which only stopped centimeters from the tip of Rin's nose.

"Match Over. The Winner is Ichika Orimura!" a voice announced over the intercom.

At first I was just hovering with the blade as I took in what had just happened. It took a few moments before I was able to calm my blood down enough to put away my blade and lower myself back onto the ground. Rin was just stunned as her suit gave out, which forced her to land on her feet.

The entire stadium had been silent ever since the match ended. Why wouldn't they? Other than my classmates from my homeroom, no one else had ever witnessed me fighting Tatenashi before. There were a couple videos floating about, but there was nothing like seeing a match firsthand. The silence could also have been attributed to the fact that I had won a serious match instead of being humored in my match with the student council president. It could have also been attributed to the fact that the one male pilot just defeated a Candidate Representative.

"It was a good match!" I said with after deactivating my suit to offer a handshake to Rin.

"And I thought I had you at the beginning," Rin lamented while shaking my hand.

That was the moment when I heard several cheers erupted from the stadium. Looking around, I saw my specific class area had started throwing confetti over the fact that their chances to get the free desert tickets had risen greatly with Rin's defeat. There were some artificial cries of love from the rest of the student crowds, and I swore that I saw some of the men in the boxed areas were giving standing ovations over my success. Several flashes went off in the distance as the paparazzi and students tried to immortalize the moment with pictures.

"Need me to carry you to the hangar?" I asked Rin who was unable to activate her I.S. due to all the damage it had sustained throughout the fight.

"Won't that be a problem for your fan girls," she said jokingly with a red blush spread across her face.

"Just think of it as my command for you," I said with a light smile.

"You… Fine," she mumbled with an even deeper shade of red on her face.

"Hold on ti_"

I wasn't able to finish what I was saying. What was a joyous and exhilarating event quickly turned into one that could only be described as hell. The loud applause had been replaced with the sound of crackling fire, and the grounds that had been dusty from the fight grew a burning crater expelling smoke from the epicenter.

"Are you okay?!" I desperately asked the girl that I had swooped up into my arms just prior to the attack.

"What… What just happened?" Rin coughed out as she tried to recover from the shock.

I didn't have to respond though. The intercom did all the work for me.

"I.S. Academy is under attack! Everyone please calmly evac_"

Author's Notes

#1: For the most part these notes will just be here to clarify some things that may not have been so obvious while reading. Please favorite and follow if you liked this story. Also send reviews of things you liked or disliked so that I can try to improve the work. Send questions and I will probably respond to some of them in the next chapter.


	14. Chapter 14

Disclaimer: I do not own I.S. and no copyright infringement is intended.

"Speaking/Reading"

Ichika's Perspective

"We gotta get out of here," I quickly stated as my eyes searched for a safe place to go.

"Wha… But what about the enemy?" Rin asked angrily.

"What are you going to do? Fight whatever just broke the barrier with your fist?"

Even if I was the hotheaded type, I wasn't a fool.

Wait a second. After remembering what I had done two years ago, I just slapped myself mentally. I was a fool, but that's not the point.

I had a suit that had almost nothing going for it at the moment and had to protect Rin. No matter how confident I was in my abilities, it would have been idiotic to outright fight whatever was in the smoke. My first priority had to be protecting Rin, and then find a spot to hide until the teachers were able to take control of the situation. It made me feel like a coward to think about running away, but whatever was attacking us was clearly not going to let anyone go.

Looking about, there really was only one way to go to get Rin to safety. The only problem was if my opponent would even give me the chance to get to the hangar. As it stood, I had to control my acceleration to keep Rin safe. This handicap made me the perfect target for my attacker. I wouldn't have been able to even evade an attack. Evading any attacks would force Rin to have to endure the full force of any maneuvers and would increase the risk of a stray shot hitting her.

"Just hold on tight, Rin," I said quietly before slowly making my way to the hangar doors.

At first, nothing really happened. The alarm just kept blaring while the smoke continued to rise from the crater. Whatever attacked us didn't seem to have noticed that we were still in the arena. In fact, the enemy didn't even seem too interested in causing more destruction. It was peculiar, but I wasn't going to complain since it made it easier for me to escort Rin to safety.

"Why's she not attacking?" Rin asked quietly.

"I… I don't know, but just stay quiet for now. The sooner I can get you to safety the better," I whispered.

Although I was acting calm, I felt an unnatural stir in my stomach. The situation was far too mild for an attack on the school. The lack of attacks almost seemed as though the enemy was waiting for me to finish my business. I felt as though it were watching me. It reminded me of them.

Just as I was about to reach the hangar, a purple beam flashed from the smoke. The appearance of the light made me go in reverse and shield my childhood friend from the incoming attack. I didn't see the rest of the attack, but I certainly heard and felt the rest. My sensors went off as they detected the large explosion and blazing heat that struck my backside.

In a panic, I checked my shield points and noticed that I had lost about two hundred. I hadn't even been directly hit by the attack, and I had lost over half of my remaining shields. If I even took another hit, both Rin and I would become charcoal.

"Just drop me down!" Rin yelled as she realized the fact that we were in serious trouble if I couldn't dodge the next attack.

"And leave you behind? Don't be stupid!"

"Just do it stupid! At this rate it'll get the both of us!"

"We just have to hold out until the faculty arrives," I said angrily.

"I don't think that'll be happening anytime soon," a voice called out in English as a video image of Cecilia appeared on my screen.

"What do you mean?" I asked worriedly.

"It seems that the security systems have been hacked, and our defenses are being used against us. At the moment, all of the teachers and students that can pilot are either trying to break down the anti-I.S. shutters or evacuate noncombatants," Cecilia yelled before flying out of the hangar with another pilot.

"What are you two trying to do?"

"Ms. Sarashiki and I will distract the enemy while you go help out Ms. Huang," Cecilia called out before releasing several machines to surround the enemy.

I looked at the other pilot, and noticed that the machine was the not the Mysterious Lady. Cecilia did say Ms. Sarashiki was piloting the machine, but it wasn't the president who was piloting. Instead of the active upperclassman was the shy girl I had met in the I.S. development center. This bit of news was troublesome since I was hoping for the sister to have been in the arena. If Tatenashi was the one in the arena, her water shields would have done wonders in making sure that I could get into the hangar with Rin safely. Hell, Tatenashi probably would have destroyed whoever our enemy was.

But I couldn't be bitter about the situation. I was honestly thankful that I had two pilots to distract the enemy for me. If not for them, I wouldn't have been able to find a way to get out of the situation. The only worrisome aspect was how well the two would do against our opponent. It had burst through the school's barrier, and it probably belonged to Phantom Task. We were just freshmen trying to stall someone who was probably out for blood.

It was useless to think of such things, but it was hard not to worry. My main concern should just be protecting my childhood friend. I could sweat the details later once I could get her to the hangar.

"Hold on tight. This might be a little painful," I said while drawing Rin in closer to help reduce whatever force she could experience.

"Just go already."

* * *

Cecilia's Perspective

"I don't know who you are, but don't think you can get away with attacking the school!" I yelled out to whoever was still in the smoke.

It was unlike me to act so rashly, but I needed to draw the foe's attention. If I couldn't, then my fellow classmates would perish. I had seen the strength of my enemy's attack, and it was honestly quite devastating. I didn't even want to think what would happen if one of the beams that it had shot collided with me.

After a few moments of silence, I continued yelling, "Surrender for you are in the presence of two Candidate Representatives and a school full of trained pilots. Unless you can take down the cream of the crop, you stand no chance."

"Uhm… I don't think you should try to antagonize her…" my comrade said quietly through the communications.

"We don't have much of a choice. Besides, she is the enemy. I don't really think aggravating her is going to change the situation too much," I whispered back.

"But she's not attacking. Shouldn't we just distract her long enough for Ichika to escape? If we make her angry we might have to stop her completely."

"We're probably going to have to stop her ourselves anyways. Remember what I told Ichika? All of the other pilots won't be able to come here any time soon."

"I… see…" she said with a downtrodden expression.

This was the Japanese Candidate Representative? She seemed too reluctant to even fight to have been one. What exactly was the Japanese government thinking in making such a gentle girl a pilot? Was it just because she came from an influential family or because she was related to the student council president? Or was the reason just simply because the nation had strange standards? It wouldn't have been too unbelievable since almost every girl I met here that was of Japanese descent seemed to have their priorities wrong. But then again, it wasn't as though many of the other girls from any other countries were too different.

Nevertheless, we were both stuck in a position that did not give us the luxury of running away. The both of us were about to start a battle that wouldn't end until one side was defeated. I could only hope that our side wouldn't suffer any losses.

I deployed my bits to surround the target that had not moved an inch. Why wasn't the pilot responding? Was she just that focused on attacking Ichika? If that were the case, I would have been failing in my job as the decoy.

"Answer me you mongrel!" I yelled as I opened fire with my bits.

I didn't even bother waiting to see what effect the shots had. It would have been suicidal to remain hovering in the same position after openly attacking the pilot. The only problem was that I had to stop shooting my bits in order to move. I wished I could have kept a continuous fire and remain mobile, but I was still getting used to controlling the four bits.

"Stay away!"

I looked at the direction of the scream and noticed that the enemy had not come after me. Instead of actually attacking the person who had shot her, the pilot had dashed after Ms. Sarashiki. The freshman was quickly dashing backwards while shooting blindly into the trail of smoke that had shot from the larger plume.

As I stopped myself from circling the smoke, I steadied my gun to aim at where the smoke would be when I fired. It left me out in the open, but I had to ensure that my fellow classmate was safe. As it stood, she was in a direct line of fire due to the fact that she had forgotten to strafe in her fear.

Just as I saw a light glow, I pulled the trigger. While my trajectory had been true, my shot still missed. The pilot had stopped in her tracks and swung her entire body around. The force of the turn had caused the smoke surrounding her body to be blown out of the way, which revealed a strange I.S. design I had never seen before. The frame was strange in that the black machine had very little armor aside from the massive arms and a mask that looked too strange for practical human use.

I wasn't able to analyze the rest of the details though. Because of my shot, the enemy's attention was drawn to me, and she had her shot readied at me. It was honestly quite intimidating to see such a massive weapon pointed directly at me, but because the enemy had anchored herself, I also took a quick shot with my sniper.

The shot hit directly in the barrier protecting the pilot's face, and caused the arm that was about to shoot to shift ever so slightly. As a result, the beam missed me and struck the school's barrier that was behind me. The air behind me blew hard against my machine and the distinct sound of the barrier shattering made me shiver. The amount of damage it had done made me realize that I could have been completely destroyed if the shot had connected.

"Ms. Sarashiki, get back to the hangar!" I exclaimed to my frightened ally.

"But what about you?" she asked while trembling over the fact that she had nearly been the target for the attack.

"I'll be right behind you, but you are just putting yourself at risk at the moment."

It sounded quite rude, but it was better than what I was thinking. Ms. Sarashiki was currently a burden since she did not seem experienced in fighting. As it stood, she was going to get the both of us killed. If she were to stay, I would probably have to abandon her to just stop this enemy. I had nearly just died trying to keep her alive, and I had my doubts that the enemy would have made a rookie mistake as missing her target twice.

"But you_," the class representative tried to sputter out before I had to cut her off.

"Just do it. I don't think I can watch out for you when I'm having such difficulty not getting shot down myself!"

"G-g-got it," Ms. Sarashiki said with downcast eyes.

With that she started to fly off towards the hangar and fired a few shots every now in then to get some extra damage off. I would probably have to apologize to her later, but I didn't have the time to be courteous.

I did observe something strange though. The enemy had clearly gone after Ms. Sarashiki at first, and this was due to the fact that she was clearly the weaker pilot between the two of us. The tactic made think that the enemy was just tactical and trying to get rid of everyone that she could. Despite my initial thoughts, the pilot had not attacked us at all during my short conversation with Ms. Sarashiki. The enemy hadn't even moved a bit during the conversation, which was strange since it was the perfect opportunity to attack. We were both stressed and somewhat distracted. With one clear shot, the enemy could have wiped out at least Ms. Sarashiki.

"Surrender now," I said confidently while flying about in evasive patterns to avoid being struck.

There was no response other than the sound of two shots being charged. Of course she wouldn't have made things easy. If she had, why would she have bothered coming here in the first place?

"As you wish!" I exclaimed before releasing a quick onslaught of shots from my bits, which forced me to come at a complete stop just as the enemy released her shots.

Both of her shots blazed just inches from my face and damaged the school's barrier even further. The heat of the shots and the falling pieces of the barrier damaged my shields ever so slightly, but I had avoided the attack. That was all that mattered other than the fact that all of my shots had connected with the enemy's shield.

Looking around, I noticed that Ms. Sarashiki had left the arena. This left me completely alone with my enemy, which was a tad bit scary since I was essentially caged in with a monster. Even if the military had trained me and done their best to prepare me for such situations, they could not impart the stress of a real situation such as this.

"Could you refrain from the damaging the school anymore than you have already? I would like it if I could still attend a school after this!"

"…"

"Answer me already!" I yelled in frustration while resuming the fight with several blasts from my Blue Pierce.

With that, my opponent charged towards me and made very small movements to avoid all of my shots. The precise movements were somehow frightening since I had left only tiny gaps within very quick intervals. This pilot was clearly skilled to have been able to avoid such attacks while coming at me when I was exposed. Either that, or she was simply adapting to my fighting style.

What was more frightening than the sudden change in distance was the fact that the pilot had her arm outstretched to grab me. The massive claws felt as though they could easily crush me, and caused me to dash back. I even had to release my hidden missile bits due to how much I wanted to just get away from the enemy. It was damn near suicidal to have shot explosives in such a close range, but I just had to get away.

The resulting explosions from my missiles had also splashed some damage onto me, but it didn't matter. My target had to have been forced away from me, but my I.S. still indicated that the target was still a threat. How could she possibly have been okay after enduring two direct hits with rockets? I had even hit her with several volleys from both my bits and gun. Was the frame really that strong, or was it because my beam weapons didn't have as much striking power as conventional weaponry?

It was just so unnerving having to fight this enemy alone. I knew that I had told the others that backup wasn't going to show up, but I really could have used some help. My attacks didn't seem to be doing anything, and the pilot seemed to have started adapting to my fighting style. If this kept up much longer, I would be in serious trouble.

"Is there anything you want to say?" I asked haughtily while utilizing my bits to fire into the smoke from all directions.

Before the fight, I didn't know what was more frustrating than having a school of the flippant trying to learn how to pilot weapons of mass destruction. Now I knew that I hated having to deal with a silent opponent. It just felt too unreal and inhuman. The silence made it that much harder to deal with the current life or death situation.

It was only unfortunate that the pilot did end up speaking in a metallic voice after I had demanded a response for so long. What was more unfortunate was that she or it had done so only after appearing out of the smoke to pin me down. The sheer speed had prevented me from disabling my control of the bits, and allowed her to capture my vulnerable state as a result.

With my head firmly grasped by the enemy's arm, she said, "Eliminating… obstacles…"

There wasn't too much to say about the current situation. It was bad. No that was an understatement. I was going to die, and I was going to leave the world with a pink beam erasing my head from existence. There wasn't too much I could do either since I had used my trump card to escape before. I was even firing my bits at the enemy's back in hopes of depleting the shields before losing my head, but I knew that my bits didn't have enough fire power to finish the job.

After a while, I stopped struggling. I was going to die regardless of what I did. The only thing I could have done was reduce the shields enough to make the job of disposing the enemy easier for the next fighter. What a way to go.

"If I had known that I was going to die now, I would have taken Chelsea's advice more seriously," I said with a bitter laugh.

"Didn't know you were such a quitter!" a boy yelled from afar.

It wasn't even half a second before the sound of metal crackling and crumpling reached my ears and the grip on my head loosened.

"Got you!" a girl said while whisking me away from the enemy.

My eyes opened to see Ms. Sarashiki making a mad along the sides of the abandoned arena. Her eyes were full of fright still, but she wasn't shaking from having to deal with the enemy. Looking at Ichika, I saw him still using the Uchigane that he had been using in the match before. I could tell he was still using the same machine since one of his arms still had a cut in it from having to take on one of the Shenlong's blade head on. The only difference was that he was wielding two massive particle cannons, both of which were still sizzling and sparking from having been fired.

Looking back at the enemy, I had noticed that one of the arms had been blown clean off of the pilot. This left the enemy with only one massive arm for an I.S. since there were no thrusters of leg pieces. The arm that been controlling the part that had grabbed me was even missing. In its stead were a few frayed and melted wires. It was a beautiful sight to see the monster to have been so heavily damaged, but there were still some things about the situation that bothered me. How exactly was a machine piloting the I.S., and since when were the destructive cannons Ichika was using invented?

Before I could ponder the issue much more, Ichika asked, "So is the princess okay?"

"Startled… But I think she's okay," Ms. Sarashiki said with a scared look.

"I thought I told you two to get away," I said angrily, but with tears in my eyes over the fact that I was going to live for another day.

"I'll take that as a thank you for saving your life. Can you still fight?" he asked with his joking attitude disappearing.

"Yes, but none of my attacks seem to have any effect."

"Just distract it using your bits, and make sure to keep moving," he said calmly, which irritated me since he didn't seem to realize how difficult it was to control remote bits.

"I can't exactly control them that well quite yet," I said rather angrily.

"Really? Isn't there some automated program?" the two asked with a confused look.

"Unfortunately not. The government wanted me to test out the new system manually and wanted to see if I could utilize it more effectively than an A.I."

"Well… that complicates things. Can you see if you can rotate all of your bits around one of your arms?" he asked sheepishly.

"Sure…"

With that, I called my bits back and did what he asked. Before I knew it, the strain that I had been putting on my mind to control the bits had decreased by a considerable amount. Without having to focus on where all of the bits were since I had just reduced the field of focus to just the size of my arm, I was able to direct my attention to my own movements.

"You good?"

"Much better, but how_"

"Ask later. We have to deal with this problem. Ms. Sarashiki, take control over the cannons. Cecilia, go circle the enemy and use the bits as a machine gun to damage the enemy further. I'll go in with my blades to keep it in one spot," Ichika said quickly before rushing the enemy.

"But it's after you!" I exclaimed in worry over the fact that the boy might have been over his head to challenge the pilot head on.

"I know! Just do what I say and we can all laugh about this incident over some tea!"

"Please provide the backup…" the girl said nervously behind me as she flew towards the mounted cannons.

"And you stay safe," I responded before flying off to reengage the enemy.

Author's Notes

#1: For the most part these notes will just be here to clarify some things that may not have been so obvious while reading. Please favorite and follow if you liked this story. Also send reviews of things you liked or disliked so that I can try to improve the work. Send questions and I will probably respond to some of them in the next chapter.


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